Anyone have a tinning tool?

Harvey Ramer

I wouldn't mind buying one. I have a large copper tank that I want to wrap with copper tubing and make a reverse indirect water heater. I want to solder the tubing to the tank for faster heat transfer.

Intplm.

@Harvey Ramer . Ive heard that you can use one of those ridgid pipe thawing tools to do what you are thinking of doing.
I haven't done it myself and tossed the tinning tools years ago.
Maybe ridgid kt-200 thawing machine? They might have been used for flameless soldering before the pro press tools.
Might be worth looking into.

hot_rod

A torch with a broad flame tip might work faster, that copper tank will suck a lot of heat, not sure a tinning iron will keep up? Unless you get a powered one, add a copper tip to an electric wood burning handle.

A higher wattage version of one of these wood stamp tools perhaps.

The Rheem Solar-aide tanks have coils fastened to the outside of the tank, not sure how they fasten to a steel tank.

Harvey Ramer

I might try the torch. If I did get a tinning iron, I'm thinking it would have to be at a 600 watt electric.

george_42

on ebay there are a lot of vintage soldering irons , gas and electric

hot_rod

Are you soldering the tube directly to the tank?
The folks that build those waste heat recovery tubes use a rectangular copper tube for better contact to the tube wall. Be nice to find some of that stuff, maybe from Wolverine?

Harvey Ramer

> @hot rod_7 said:
> Are you soldering the tube directly to the tank?
> The folks that build those waste heat recovery tubes use a rectangular copper tube for better contact to the tube wall. Be nice to find some of that stuff, maybe from Wolverine?

That was the plan. Braze or solder the tube directly to the copper tank. I have tons of 3/8" copper tube laying around from unused sections of line sets. The plan is to build an inlet and outlet manifold and have maybe 4-5 3/8" tubes in parallel spiraled around the tank from bottom to top. Then wrap the whole business with insulation.

The tank will be heated from my wood boiler. The radiant system will tap of the tank as well. 2 pipe buffer arrangement.

The domestic water will pass through the 3/8 tubing assembly before entering the gas water heater.

hot_rod

good idea with manifolded 3/8, it will form to the tank better than 1/2 or larger

Leonard

Not having done this and not knowing any better I might try one of those outdoor ice melting propane torches ~50k BTU. They have lot of BTUs and can heat a wide area. On full they throw a 1.5 ft 4inch dia flame , but can throttle back valve to make a lazy low heat flame.

Might want to use a solder that doesn't solidify all at once, ei if lead-tin solder use a solder that;s not 60/40 so it gets pastey over a wider temp range. Makes it easier to work ( technically one component starts to solidify while other one is still liquid)