For mending teakettles, tin cans, tin cups, or anything made of tin,
galvanized iron, or lead.
_Material:_ Lead solder, comes in small bars. Flux (1.) Resin and sweet
oil. (2.) Muriatic acid. (3.) Tallow candle.
_Tool:_ Soldering iron (can be made out of a piece of half-inch round
copper.)
_How to solder:_ Soft solder is a mixture of tin and lead in even
proportions. This solder melts at a very low temperature. That is why
we can do the work with the soldering iron. I find I can solder many
things at home with the soft solder, and I'm going to tell you how I
mended a leak in the teakettle the other day. First, I took a pocket
knife and cleaned all around the hole or leak, scraping the dirt off
both inside and out. Then I mashed a little resin up fine and mixed a
little sweet oil with it. Then I washed inside and outside of this
leak with the mixture. After heating my soldering iron in a stove (any
kind of fire will do) I took a bar of solder, held it over the leak,
and melted off a bit with the hot iron. You can make the solder flow
over the leak by pressing the iron right on the hole. You see, the heat
of the iron melts the solder and at the same time it heats the tin
hot enough to make the solder cling to it. Before the part got cold I
rubbed off the oil and resin with a woollen cloth. This left the work
nicely cleaned. You can mend any leak in anything made of tin, in this
way.
Galvanized iron utensils are soldered in exactly the same way, but you
must use muriatic acid in place of the resin and sweet oil. But if
you wish to solder anything made of lead or pewter a tallow candle is
rubbed over the place to be mended, instead of resin and sweet oil or
muriatic acid. In every other way the work is just the same. But lead,
you know, melts at a very low temperature, so you must be careful when
working on it that your soldering iron is just hot enough to melt the
solder and not hot enough to melt the lead. And now I am going to tell
you how you can make your own soldering iron out of copper.