Posted by David Sherman on Wednesday, May 03, 2006 at 0:49AM :
In Reply to: Re: sealing up pinholes in oil pan posted by Ed (LG,NY) on Tuesday, May 02, 2006 at 11:14PM :
Glad to hear somebody else made their flux by hand too. I agree zinc chloride is the flux that will make solder stick to things where nothing else will work. Of course it's the original infamous "acid flux", so you need to wash it off thoroughly and never use it on anything electrical. I use scraps of pot metal for my zinc source. Whatever other metals are in the alloy, usually copper and aluminum, will just settle to the bottom of the jar. Galvanized stuff (sheet metal scraps, bad nails, etc) will also work. It won't take the acid long to strip the zinc off and then you can throw out the steel. Sometimes large lumps of pure zinc end up in bins of galvanized nails and you can get them for free.
That sounds like quite the permanent roof you built!
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