Kenny

Quote from: AVTURHave a look at CuP Alloy website, https://cupalloys.co.uk. It is a mine of useful information. They can supply everything you need. I am sure they will export to Finland. Their cleaning salts, pickling acid, is citric acid probably with a biocide.

Wow, awesome! Thanks for the link AVTUR! Looks like they do ship to Finland and even with exchange rate and customs fees it still looks like it should be a better deal than buying what I can find here. Plus they have a real selection of stuff. Will have to explore it more but it looks like this will be the source when it comes to silver soldering

Only silver stuff I have found is marked L-Ag 45 Sn, 1.5 mm and flux coated. I'm thinking that 1.5 mm might be a bit thick for small part work?

There there's also square 2x2 mm rods named phosphor copper L-AG 2% and basically looks like copper. These are not coated. Cost a lot less than the coated silver. 2x2 mm is for sure huge for our type of work.

Only soldering I have experience with is electronics component soldering. Did some gas welding back in school and that's a life time ago so I have a few, hopefully not too stupid, questions:

How is gas welding different from hard silver soldering? Seems very similar to me. A gas and a flame

Second, can only silver solder be used? I have seen things like some brass or phosphor bronze. Can that be used?

Only silver solder wire/sticks I have found around here are the flux coated ones. Are they ok too? Better/worse than bare wire?
I'm guessing one could just remove the flux coating and use separate flux?

Ken

Thanks everybody! I'm in Finland so none of the American railroad history here. I actually lived in the US for about 20 years and did some model railroading then. Still have the HO rolling stock saved but I doubt it will ever be put to use. Maybe I'd build a small shelf layout one day, more as a diorama and display than running. I have way too many projects and hobbies as it is already tho so not holding my breath.
This is also why I really like the diesel locomotives like SD40, SD60 and similar. I wish there were Kozo style plans available to build something like that. Have thought about making plans myself but I don't have experience with locomotives in general to really pull that off. Built plenty of balsa RC airplanes but that's slightly different

Hello,

I'm a software engineer by trade but as years go by I more and more enjoy making real tangible things. Machining is something I have been interested in taking on as a hobby for a very long time but circumstances have not been favorable until more recently. I now have a lathe and milling machine of the Chinese variety that are sold under many different brands and colors and have been making various small tools as a learning experience.

I really want to tackle something more complex and interesting so I was able to order the Kozo books on the K-27 and have been working on the frame parts. Model trains are basically non existent in my corner of the world and steam locomotives unheard of so there would be nowhere to actually run a K-27. Unless I could build a railroad in the backyard, which is very unlikely to happen. But that's not why I'd build it anyway. I enjoy the building experience, be it a steam locomotive or games on the computer, so this would basically be a display model in the end.

It's always interesting to see what and how other people build so currently enjoy reading the thread on Kim's A3 build.  Kozo's books are also really good just to learn from so I decided to order his New Shay book too since it is available.

We'll see how it goes. I have a long list of more tools I want to make as soon as I can get back to my shop. Summer season tends to have a lot of other house projects lined up so it might be fall before I get a chance to make chips again.