Painting over plumber's solder?

I've used plumbers solder to fill small holes before. Painted the car no problem. Last time I saw the car it still looked good. Like you said though, you have to make sure ALL of the flux is removed.

 

use a good etching primer alot of new paints don't like to stick to lead

 

Real Lead Solder,or the new Lead Free crap ?

The old stuff melted at a lower temp,and was more forgiving.
The new crap melts at a higher temp,but turns to shit if it gets too hot.

 

if you can still find the lead solder i'd use it if not they have a flux on the market now that is called no corode.
it should clean up a bit better than the old flux.
sanding the solder down should get must of the flux off anyways, but you might try to use the new stuff on another piece of metal.i'm a plumber, and if the pipes are exposed i sand them down so they don't look like shit the day after i do the job.of course i never paint over them but i know i get all the flux off the pipes.
good luck
kenny

 

just make sure it is cleaned real good and make sure you use self-etching primer first. you wont have any problems

 

Grim, If you have oxy-act set I have a silver solder alloy that does not require flux. It is used in commercial hvac repairs.It can be used on dirty metal as well. No flux at all! If you want to experiment, I will send you a coupla sticks. I also have some silver solder left but you will need a flux with that and Clean metal. Let me know.

 

I still use 50/50 solder to tin and lead over for body work. I'm not real good at it but have had success repairing body parts. I wash the leaded areas really good with warm water and soap and clean with wax and grease remover. I have not had a problem with paint adhesion. I have put PPG DP90 over it and seems good so far.

 

Kevin,
I got a bunch of silver solder here if you want to give it a whirl. If I recall its 70%.
If you give it a good cleaning and use some zinc-chromate primer( self etching) the paint stick just fine.
Just my .02

 

trailer ed has done some really cool sh*t using solder. i bet if you pm him he can tell you what kind he used and how he used it.

or maybe he'll see this...

 

Why not use an epoxy?

JB Weld is a good one and I've done a lot of stuff with it.
Never had a failure.

Change is easy as well.
400-600 degrees F. applied to the joint will release most epoxies.

There are alloy specific epoxies out there as well.
Take a look in the MSC catalog or their website.

Most of us grew up welding, machining, bolting and screwing things together.
Kind of hard sometimes to remember there are other ways to do things.


That said, my first car was a 50 Ford sedan that my dad bought new.
After it was wrecked and repaired, he stuck an aftermarket Crestliner chrome strip on it and did the two-tone bit.

It may have been a 51 Crestliner strip - fairly sure the 51 Crestliner I saw this particular strip on was stock.
Anyhoo . . . the strip ended at the standard for non-Crestliner cars horizontal side chrome strip.

I bought the car in the summer and the next December, dad offered to paint it for a Christmas present.
He countersunk the #10 size drilled holes (to give the solder a larger area to grip) where the Crestliner strip had been bolted on and soldered them shut - with a large iron - using solid solder and acid flux.
The flux was neutralized, solder sanded flush, car primed and the old black & yellow two-tone was replaced with the good looking and popular at the time Titian Red.

Ran the sedan for several years and no problems with the solder popping out.