Stuart-
Your "soft soldered" term tickled my "mojo," as I'd never heard it before and kinda liked it. You wrote: "The large rear chassis lug on a Morgan tricycle which carries all transmission and rear suspension loads is soft soldered. It tends to creep round under all that load but takes several decades to move a few degrees."
The term is presented in my dictionary, to my surprise, which I included below for you. And so now I'm thinking: That "lug on a Morgan tricycle," does it really "creep around," as in bonded by some type of non-hardening material? I can't imagine a "silver-soldered" lug on a Schwinn Paramount or any other vintage lightweight bicycle that tends to "creep around...move a few degrees.
Joe Starck, Sun Prairie, Wisconsin
Websters dict.:
When parent metal is not melted: "solder: ...to join metals by using alloys...soft solders of tin-lead alloys melt easily; hard (or brazing) solders of copper-zinc alloys melt only at red heat" "braze:...to join metals by using alloys...exceeding 800 degrees F..." Parent metal is melted: "weld:...to unite by heating until molten or fused..." StuartMX4@aol.com wrote: I hesitate to stick in my two penn'orth as I am the archetypal non-expert... jack of all trades, master of none, but...... It is too dogmatic to assert that silver soldering is not a correct term. I have never bought silver solder as anything except silver solder. I have two small packets in front of me with the legend silver solder on them. Regarding the lower temperatures, some Morgan three wheelers raced pre-war had the lugs silver soldered rather than brazed. That may have been to avoid weakening the tubes but I have always understood that it made it easier to remove the lugs for retubing or repair. It is impossible to get a brazed lug off a Morgan; you have to saw it off and machine out the stub of tube. I think I am correct in saying that accidentally bending a tube while brazing results in it snapping while with silver solder you will get away with it. I have to admit that I have never tried to break a tube that way. Sorry if this is off topic, but I do rather object to being told that "silver soldering" is a term never used by engineers. How about modifying that to "never used by twenty first century engineers in the USA?" Stuart Tallack in quaint old-fashioned Sussex Postscript even more off topic. The large rear chassis lug on a Morgan tricycle which carries all transmission and rear suspension loads is soft soldered. It tends to creep round under all that load but takes several decades to move a few degrees.
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