JB Weld?

[smokepole45cal]

I have been trying to practice silver soldering to join an underlugs into a very shallow dovetail (1/32") into a 5/8" waist on my custom Rice .36cal squirrel barrel. I think I'm going to give up silver soldering because I can't get a bond on my practice skelps. Tinning both surfaces isnt working. Rice says 1/32" dovetail on the waist portion should firmly hold but I want to have more reassurance so....

Have any of you guys used J-B Weld to bond shallow dovetails and underlugs together? Thank you

[Stoner creek]

I would not recommend it. Keep practicing on the solder. Flux it and don’t get it too hot. Perhaps try a low temperature solder. JB is great stuff but I suspect that it will eventually pop loose.

[Goo]

If you want to have success use Ruby fluid flux and 50/50 lead/tin solder .  The silver bearing stuff is nearly impossible to use on steel and iron and the 50/50 lead/tin mix does a good job.  60/40 won't work either.

[smylee grouch]

Good advice IMHO, use soft solder.

[flinchrocket]

The new soldering paste is easy to use,just squirt some on,heat it up slow until it flows.

[LynnC]

Smokepole,

Im of the opinion that solder is not called for. I have made  tennons from folded .020 sheet steel and filed in .020” deep dovetails to match. Driven them into the dovetails and drilled for pins. I defy you to put a pin thru a tennon and pull it off the barrel with your fingers. Way stouter than u think!  1/32” deep is plenty and anymore is more than enough for a barrel tennon IMHO. At 1/32 your in good shape...........Lynn

[LynnC]

Caveat.  If i were putting a tennon in the round section of an octagon to round barrel Id solder the tennon to barrel dovetail joint

[Stophel]

I personally find it confusing to call solder that has a small amount of silver in it "silver solder".  Silver solder is something else entirely.

I generally use lead-free tin plumber's solder, with no problems.

If you can get both surfaces tinned, there should be no reason why you can't get the two parts soldered together.  That's the main part of it, right there.

As was said, get it fluxed, and get it tinned without getting it too hot.  If the metal gets hot enough to start showing colors, solder won't stick to it no matter what.  Gotta be careful and get it tinned before the colors show.

[WadePatton]

...  The silver bearing stuff is nearly impossible to use on steel and iron...

The 56% silver is how lugged bicycles are made, in steel.  Is how I made mine, including the fork. Works beautifully for that purpose. Works on stainless too-used stainless dropouts and polished 'em.

I haven't used any on a barrel yet, but the time will come, it's all about proper flux and heat and cleanliness.

[LynnC]

Wade. Are you talking about silver brazing requiring red heat?f

[Mauser06]

Flinchrocket is right on....get some of the low temp silver paste.  It flows at pretty dang low temperature.  But takes a good bit more heat to remelt so barrel heat isn't an issue. 


Clean the joint with alcohol or whatever.   Squirt the paste where needed.  Heat indirectly.   You'll see the paste start to turn liquid.  I give it just a second or so more and take the heat off.   

[bob in the woods]

The lug only has to fasten that slender piece of wood....the barrel holds the wood, not the other way around.  Shallow dovetails or soft solder have never let me down. 

[JBJ]

In addition to a thorough cleaning, the proper flux and careful control of the temperature (do not over heat and burn the flux!), I would add, keep your fingers off of the cleaned surfaces! Dirt is not your friend. Any of the typical low temp silver bearing solders will work well. I really like Stay-Brite and Hi-Force 44 low temp solder. Both of these melt in the mid-400 degree range. I do not suggest the use of silver braze (also called high temp silver solder) for this job as the required temp is HIGH. Great for bicycle building as Wade pointed out but not this particular application.
J.B.

[smokepole45cal]

Great feedback. Thank you.

[Mike Brooks]

Use 50/50 or force 44. I use both and both are easy. I have also used the stuff that is advertised with 5% silver....it's not any different than the other two soft solders I have used. When I solder I heat the barrel until the solder melts then pull away. It is really easy to do. You might practice soldering copper plumbing parts together, that's how I learned. I was a plumber before I built guns. DO NOT EVER USE HIGH TEPM SILVER SOLDER OR BRAZING FOR BARREL LUGS, YOU"LL RUIN YOUR BARREL. I have built guns for 39 years and there has never been a time when I would have ever considered using JB weld for anything. JB weld is nothing more than excuse for poor craftsmanship, throw it away NOW.

[Pukka Bundook]

You're on the money, Mike!

[Craig Wilcox]

JB weld IS good for holding a side plate to a piece of wood for polishing or engraving.  Also good to hold the blunt end of a chisel in a wooden handle.

[D. Taylor Sapergia]

JB Weld is great stuff, and has many uses. But not for gun building.

If your dovetail/tenon joint is less than perfect, soft solder will help.  I use an electronic solder that contains 2% silver.  It is very fine wire.  I use ordinary soldering paste for flux, even on steel, and it works just fine.  The parts must be grease/dust/dirt/rust free.  For tinning I hold the tenor in a pair of pliers which I clamp in a machinist's vise.  I flux the part with a small brush, cut off a length of the solder and place it on top of the area I want to tin.  And here's a little trick that I somehow discovered and that really helps get the molten solder to completely cover the base of the tenon...I take a small wad of 0000 steel wool, and rub the end of the wad in the flux.  I apply heat from a propane torch under the lug and against the pliers so that the flame is not on the area I want t tin.  When the solder melts, and it only takes a few seconds, I immediately remove the flame, and rub the tenon base gently with the steel wool wad.  The extra flux on the steel wool helps clean the steel and the solder flows evenly and smoothly over the tenon.  Do not introduce the steel wool to Mr. Torch, or you'll have a red hot pinch of steel wool in your fingers.  This process will tin the steel wool, so that it is even easier to tin the second tenon, and the barrel dovetail.

[WadePatton]

Wade. Are you talking about silver brazing requiring red heat?f

I suppose so.  I used it on thin-wall bike tubing- .035" thick at the butts.

Brass was used in the days of commercially-made lugged bikes, but it requires more gap for the filler to flow. It's still used for fillet-brazed frames (as my mtb).  I don't know the heats offhand for either one, but read the flux and used Oxy/Acetylene for all my work in that regard.  Oxy/Propane can be used.  Some folks think joinery cannot be done with brass and 4130, but they are clearly misinformed.  Silver-brazing does require a good bit more heat than soldering with Tin/Pb, or low-content "silvers" I suppose-never fooled with them (aside from plumbing).

It's been several years since I ran out of acetylene.  I'll refill it when I can. I really dig gas welding-was the first thing I learned with the torch.

Listen to Mike and Taylor, I've built more bikes than guns at this point.

[smokepole45cal]

Should have posted this photo to show you my materials --already using low-melting-point Brownells High Force 44 and flux. I've never purchased nor have I heard of JB Weld before yesterday (Mike Brooks), hence my inquiry here concerning its suitability for reinforcing a shallower dovetail.

To the gentleman with the tip about running with pliers and steel wool. Good idea. Thank you.

[smokepole45cal]

Typo! Never will I run with needle nose pliers! 😆

[Stophel]

 I've never purchased nor have I heard of JB Weld before yesterday

Wow, and people say I live under a rock!        J.B. Weld is the most famous and common and readily available of all epoxies. 

 I generally avoid epoxy like the plague.  It is the gunsmith's crutch.  However, on very rare occasions, I do have to make use of the crutch.  But I still don't like epoxies.  I have NEVER had real success with hardly any of them.  Acraglas is the worst. (ok, Micro-Bed was the worst, since 75% of the time it wouldn't set up and remained tacky... but it's not made anymore.  No great loss there.)  None of them really stick to wood very well, with the much-vaunted Acraglas being very brittle and simply flaking itself off of the wood.  Personally, I don't care how many people sing its praises, as far as I'm concerned, it's worse than $#@*.   The ONLY epoxy I have tried that I have found I can rely on at all is plain old J.B. Weld.  No, it still doesn't hold wood nearly as well as my favored Titebond glue, but it does OK in no-stress applications.  It will, however, stick to steel like nobody's business.

If I do manage to need to do something like fill some unusual area where fitting in a new piece of wood and glueing it in place would be an awful lot of trouble (a problem caused by me screwing up!), I reach for the J.B. Weld.  I would not consider any other epoxy at this point.  I can even mix in black pigment to make the epoxy a sooty black instead of the obvious gray plastic appearance.

I would not consider J.B. Welding a barrel tenon on a working gun (I did once J.B. a peeled-off underrib on an old gun just to make it more presentable.  Cleaning that whole thing off and soldering it on would have been a lot more work than it was worth).  The heat from firing would probably eventually soften the epoxy enough to break it loose.

[Scota4570]

Before I used JB I'd use Loctite 680. 

That said soldering is easy.  Use lead-tin rosin core radio solder or the Brownells stuff.  Tin using acid paste flux.  Heat the parts gently and rub the solder in with steel wool that has solder and flux on it.  Once fluxed was the acid flux off.  Then coat with rosin flux, available from radio repair places as a liquid in solvent.  Assemble.  Heat.  Add the rosin core solder until the joint is filled.

I attach under ribs like this.  IT is not tricky or difficult.  The only thing is to not over heat the parts.  If you get heat colors stop and deal with it. 

[Daryl]

Should have posted this photo to show you my materials --already using low-melting-point Brownells High Force 44 and flux. I've never purchased nor have I heard of JB Weld before yesterday (Mike Brooks), hence my inquiry here concerning its suitability for reinforcing a shallower dovetail.

To the gentleman with the tip about running with pliers and steel wool. Good idea. Thank you.

Blue colour = too much heat.

[Jim Kibler]

I'm not sure if anyone has mentioned it, but one key is to not heat the joint directly.   Heat from the bottom of the barrel so as to not burn up the flux.

Jim