Self-Fluxing Solder with Flux Cells: Kester, 1899

Jesse F. Kester of Buffalo, New York, patented this solder in 1899, US 628,541. Solder wire with one continuous core of flux already existed, but the flux melts at a lower heat than the solder, so it melted some distance back from the end, too much ran out at each joint, and little was left near the end for the next. Kester divided the flux into a row of separate closed cells: each melt opens one cell and supplies a uniform charge of flux.

متوسط

Workshop process

التعليمات

Groove the wire

Pass ordinary wire solder lengthwise between rollers to make it trough-shaped in cross-section. (Kester's preferred route starts instead from a tube or hollow wire of solder, filled with the flux.)

المواد لهذه الخطوة:

سلك لحام1 as required

الأدوات المطلوبة:

بكرات تشكيل الأسلاك

Fill and close

Fill the groove with a suitable flux, in dry, plastic or liquid form. Close the edges of the solder together again, giving the wire a rounded or oval cross-section.

المواد لهذه الخطوة:

مساعد صهر1 as required

الأدوات المطلوبة:

بكرات تشكيل الأسلاك

Pinch into cells

Corrugate the filled wire between rollers, or pinch it at intervals of about three-sixteenths of an inch, pressing the walls together into webs. Each web closes off a cell, so the flux is held in a row of separate, uniform charges and cannot run out of the solder.

الأدوات المطلوبة:

بكرات تشكيل الأسلاك

Wide bars

For wide bars, such as roofers use, form several rows of cells, in straight rows from end to end or in diagonal rows of lozenge-shaped cells. A solid bar or rod can also have cells formed in its surface, filled with flux and closed by a covering strip pressed on.