Do You Practice Witchcraft?

[Dennis]

If you can still find it you will see a famous demonstrator on U Tube close the air hole on his Sievert briefly with his fingers, to get a more bushy flame. Not a good idea: they get pretty hot, don’t they?

As for me, when I am soldering and I have cleaned everything as usual, but my solder is reluctant to flow, I add a pinch of Tenacity No5 to the flux et voilà, success. This may be bad science, witchcraft even, but it’s much better than going back to square one.

Do you practice witchcraft? Dennis.

[Wallace]

Hubble, bubble....
I add some ground-from-the-cone borax that has been wetted by a moist bush, that seems to work for me.

.... No toil, no trouble

[ps_bond]

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic"

I suspect the addition of fluorides into your flux mix is solving the surface tension issue for you, Dennis. Tenacity 4a, 5 & 5a contain a "Mixture of potassium bifluoride, potassium tetraborate and potassium fluorosilicate with boric acid and boric anhydride" according to http://www.buckandhickman.com/Assets.../DS_292141.pdf

The boric acid can't hurt either.

[metalsmith]

I tend to pick up soldered / annealed metal a little too early too often with the consequence that my fore finger & thumb are quite heat tolerant. Where there is no sense there is no feeling they say round these parts. As I made a brew colleague had a real fuss when I rinsed my fingers under the 'instant' water boiler at work then dipped them in my filled cup to retrieve the tea bag, insisting I use a spoon.