Soldering steel to copper?

harvey

usually the steel is rusted so no solder is going to stick. we have used 1/2" compression couplings with no problems

Terry H.

Sombody please explain this to me.

I have a customer who came accross a baseboard system that has a thin wall steel tubing (looks like conduit but in 1/2" copper tube size) that has solder connections to copper fittings. How does this work? This is an old system probly late 50's to early 60's.

Thanks for your input

Terry H.

David_5

solder steel

It is possible to solder steel as you have seen. The flux is an acid and looks like water. It is brushed on the steel until it doesn't bead up. Then you can solder it. As long as oxygen is kept out of the system it should last along time.

David

Unknown

It's called Bundy tubing

I think it was used during WW2 when copper was scarce . I'm not sure what it's made of but it solders just like copper tubing .

Patchogue Phil_28

Bundy

Bundy tubing mostly had a thin zinc coating. For hydraulic pressure lines, steel was coated with a thin layer of copper, folded over 3 times for strength and coated with zinc.

Alan(CaliforniaRadiant)Forbes

They call it

Bundyweld out here:

http://www.lapham-hickey.com/Products/SteelTubing.cfm

It was used quite a bit out here during WWII because of the scarsity of copper; didn't seem to last long because of the ferrous component. Reminds me of Orangeburg pipe.

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BigRed

steel tubing

I have seen this befor aswell. I found that you should not clean the stuff to much or the zinc coating will be gone and no solider will stick, I've also seen copper coated steel tubing its a **** of a deal at the scape yard