So after feeling energized from a short but successful jaunt around town on the old beemer, I thought that it might be best to get back into the Thruxton project. It's been over two week since I've done anything to it. There was the matter of finding flux and proper soft solder and the time to get to it. Most of the past few weeks was spent studying for a unmanned aircraft certificate, which I did get.
Ray said he would be down at the shop after his Worcester trip. So I packed up all the bits, solder, flux and gloves to head to toy shop east. Ray was in the back with a couple of old timers. The torch was ready by the bench vise, I just set right to it. First step was to give it a quick rub with emery cloth both the outside of the tube and inside of the casting. Next step was to use a brush to apply the flux before an initial tinning of the components.
After this point a put the casting in the vice, axle stub section and did the tinning to the inside of the casting. Tinning the inside to the casting was a tad challenging. From that point I realigned the casting vertical and added more heat while sliding the tube back in. The questionable part was knowing when there was enough solder in the joint. I would keep adding until it looked to have a good bead and the stop. But it was cooling slower, allowing the solder to continue to flow back out the bottom. So I heat a bit more, add more solder and so on. After a bit It seemed that the trick is to feather your heat and solder towards the end of the job.
I gave Ed G. at toy shop West a quick call just to confirm my thoughts, it was an affirmative. After it had cooled I packed it up to head back home shop where it would be finished up. A small, last little chore before paint will be to clean up the seat bottom inside of the casting. I've removed all of the extra bits of solder that seeped into the bottom of the casting and re-tapped the drain plug hole 1/4 -28.
When it's time to reassemble the whole unit, I will revert to my post a few years back when I replaced the lower leg on my 63 MSS
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