The industry s current recommended widths are 5 8 inch wide flat lock seams architectural sheet metal manual by smacna and 3 4 inch wide flat lock seams copper and common sense by revere copper.
Soldering copper sheets lap seem.
This is due to the fact that pre tinning your sheets before lapping actually will allow 4 layers of copper to have solder flow while generally the flux alone will only draw flux to adhere to 2 layers.
Place the 2 pieces of copper brass you want to solder on a hard surface.
Figure 1 shows what a good lap seam looks like figure 2 shows a good flat lock seam.
In this case i m soldering a copper reducer to a piece of copper pipe.
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The extra time spent making a clean seam will pay dividends when soldering.
The difference is in forming the lock.
Where as the slip expansion lock is formed by braking a sheet of copper the lock on this seam is formed by soldering a small strip of copper below the sheet.
Do not attempt to re solder a broken seam.
Sloppy or dirty seams take much longer to solder.
Bradford sheet metal joining copper sheet metal and soldering.
Lap seams should have a minimum 1 inch overlap and no gaps larger than 1 16 inch.
Make sure that you add some flux to the area to be soldered.
Sgh to evaluate 1 2 inch wide flat lock seam soldered joints.
This seam is similar to the slip expansion seam.
Bradford sheet metal joining copper sheet metal and soldering.
Install only as much copper as can be soldered by the end of the day.