Anyone tried soldering chromed pipe? Looking to make a join with an endfeed fitting rather than a bulky chrome compression fitting, which I might try painting silver afterwards. I presume you have to strip the chrome to do the soldering, but does the heat wreck the chrome further back up the pipe? (I don't have a piece to hand to try it on, or I'd answer my own question.)
You don't have to strip the chrome fully - but abrading it helps. I've never done it on a joint in view, but as far as I recall, the chrome gets a bit rainbow hued for about 1cm max from the joint - other than that, it is unaffected. I don't know whether it would polish out again.
The heat doesn't wreck the chrome, but it can turn it a little blueish or brownish, while still leaving it shiny. A gentle rub with some chrome polish (Solvol Autosol) is usually enough to restore it.
It is worth shielding the pipe to keep any discolouration to a minimum.
I have serious doubts as to whether the solder will really work properly. Soldering actually alloys itself into the metals being jointed. (I recall sectioning and polishing samples at college) Chrome wouldn't alloy to the solder - you may end up sticking the parts together - but it won't be as good as solder on copper (IMHO).
Andrew Gabriel submitted this idea :
Well don't do what a British Gas - gas fitter did in my parents home some years ago...
He tried to solder a copper fitting onto a chromed copper pipe without taking the chrome off first. Of course the solder never wetted the pipe at all and later the pipe worked its way out of the fitting causing a gas leak. Strip the chrome off back to clean copper with abrasive and you will be fine.
Thats what I did in my bathroom to use chrome on the rad tails and the joint worked fine .
Poor quality chrome can flake, due to differential expansion, but otherwise there should be no noticeable effect, unless you overheat it. The best way to strip the chrome off is to heat the pipe gently and dip it in hydrochloric acid. Naturally, this is something that needs to be done with care and with suitable protective measures, but you get very precise control over how far it is stripped back and a neat line between chromed and (very clean) non-chromed bits. Solder as quickly as possible after dipping for best effect.
Colin Bignell
You can't.
My experience with chrome is you never get the stuff off, or it comes off in huge ugly flakes.
Not my experience .I just used rough sandpaper to start it then finished with fine stuff .It wasn't easy but it came off in time .
That is a valid point, but with respect, Andrew said at the outset that he would be removing the chrome plating from the end of the chromed copper pipe so that the solder would take.
You'd probably be better off using stainless steel rather than chrome-plated pipe.
As long as you abrade it enough to get some copper shining through in the troughs of the scratches, the solder will take well enough in my experience. Having said that, it's only four years and counting since the first one I did, so there would be ample time for premature failure. It seems easy enough to tell the difference between one which hasn't worked (the solder doesn't wet the joint properly at all) and one which has.
How well does solder take to stainless steel? That's a genuine question, because I have never tried it.
Mostly it doesn't.
It's probably the chrome in the steel...;-)
replying to John, Haidee01 wrote: Hey, I believe you are thinking of welding where the weld alloys with the parent metals, in soldering however, the temperature used is not high enough to melt the parent metals so only the filler metal will be melted. Aside from discolouring, solder should work on the chrome
Golly. Only ten years out of date
And I didn't think chrome can be soldered.
Dave W formulated on Thursday :
It cannot be soldered. It can if the chrome plating is removed first.
I have always stripped the chrome off completely on the bench grinder. (Angle grinder with longer bits of pipe.) This is after I assembled some solder joints which just blew apart under mains pressure. 'Twas years ago, maybe fluxes have improved.
Why Chrome pushfits? Used these on a shower years ago and no problems so far.
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