I am going to limit the sear engagement on a Pietta 1858 Remington New Army to get rid of the trigger creep .

I have never soldered and will be soldering a small ,thin piece of Mild steel below the full cock notch on the Hammer.

Which solder do I need to use to do this?

I already have some Bernzomatic Metal Work Solder
Silver Bearing Acid Core Solder,Lead Free with a 430 Degree F melt temperature., .062
Will this be ok to use ?

Like I said I have never done any soldering

I do have a Bernzomatic Basic torch that I bought at Walmart several years ago
I also have a Wood burning pen that also has a soldering tip provided with it,It burns at about a thousand degrees F
Should I use the Torch or the woodburning pen ?

I would also appreciate advice on soldering for this project ,

Thanks

I'm not a Gunsmith, but have done a bunch of soldering. I doubt any lead based solder will work well. I would suggest a silver solder. A propane torch will not cut it, you will need a MAP gas or acetylene torch. Others may know better.

Use the low temp solder.

It would depend on the pressure on the piece soldered. Lead is meant for electronics and piping. No real pressure on the soldered joint. Try the low temp and see if it works.

Hmmm. Question: Why would you apply heat to a hardened surface like a full-cock notch of a hammer? Answer: Only if you want to anneal said surface and then watch it rapidly wear out or break.

Yep, if it is a hardened surface then you could and most likely will create a problem with too much heat. Propane or electric heat not much of a chance. The solder for low temps does not have much strength however.

Try some Loctite Black Max. You might be pleasantly surprised.

As I said I have never done this before, I do not know what would be considered to be too high a temperature for the hammer ?
I do not believe that there will be any load bearing .
The shim will not be sitting directly in the full cock notch but will be placed below the notch not quite and 1/8 of an inch so it will not come in contact with the end of the trigger sear but come in contact with the trigger sear Body a little lower as well.

Does anyone know what is the max heat that a case hardened hammer can take before it becomes annealed ?
I am not sure it is even hardened at all,guess I will take a file to it in a smalll obscure place to see if has any tendencies to dig in any at all of just skate across the surface .

I am going to wait to find a definitive answer before starting as I do not want to do this on a trial and error basis !

You can Google up the tensile strength of the solder in question and get tensile strength and melt and flow temperatures. I went to Brownell's High Force 44 AND THE FLUX THEY RECOMMEND long ago, strong enough for about everything that doesn't need braze or weld. And the low flow temp makes it easy to control the heat. And heat control is the secret. Yes, you can overheat the joint. Speaking of heat, it is perfectly fine to soft solder common hardened steel, the flow temperature is far below the temper and anneal temperatures. But it isn't hard to get small parts way too hot with an open flame. And propane is plenty hot for soft solder (not the braze type silver solder which needs 1200F or so to flow.

And practice on scrap first. Until you can solder scrap acceptably, guaranteed you'll mess up a good part.

There's nothing secret about the Brownell's solder. It's tin with 4% silver but Brownell's is a favorite supplier particularly for small orders. But do match the flux activity and temperature to the solder.

I agree with Craigster.

Might work, I like the stuff. But make sure the steel is chemically clean. Partial to solder/weld myself, metal is more stable in its properties than cyanoacrylate and its filler. (Black Max has an atomized rubber filler which GREATLY improves shock resistance. Plain cyanoacrylate is fairly brittle.)

I’d either stone the sear to change the angle and make for less engagement or stone the notch down for less engagement. Worst case I’d see if I could drill the hammer and install a pin that could be dressed down to accomplish the same end as you’re wanting with the block you want to solder on.

Of course any of those operations are not for the average garage tinkerer who doesn’t have a complete understanding of the internals being modified.

And if you try this, pick the cheapest, most easily replaced part to work on if you have a choice.

Not really being a smartass. Easy to ruin a fire control part if you're learning how to adjust by reshaping.

Iused the picture hanger for the Mild steel and bent it backwards to match the contour of the hammer and then took a Here is a picture of the picture hanger that I contoured to the shape of the hammer
l cut off a piece a little over an 1/4 long Piece and used JB Weld to put the piece about an 1/8 inch piece below the full cock notch.
Then use a file and a Dremel to thin the piece a little at a time (making sure not to touch the full cock notch )to make sure That I had enough contact to prevent push off .
After fiddling around with it I ended up with a Hammer with no push off and no perceptible creep.
2.5 pounds on my cheapo trigger scale.
I am going to practice soldering on pieces of scrap and if this shim ever falls off I will then solder the piece back on.

I just added a couple of pics of the finished Modification that I did

That is some really bad advice for someone new to soldering, and who is working on a heat treated part. Propane torches absolutely can and do put out enough heat to damage steel temper, and a lot more than that.

Bcraig, it would be wise to avoid soldering on either the hammer or sear, even if your JB weld part doesn't work. To your question of how much heat is too much - on bare steel, as soon as you start seeing it change colors (yellow -> brown -> blue) you're in the range where it can affect temper. Normal tempering temps are between the pale yellow and solid blue color stages, depending on the steel and how hard the manufacturer wanted it to be. With harder surfaces like you're working with, the temper was probably done at lower temps, in the yellow->brown range. You will exceed that if you try to solder to it.

If the steel starts changing colors (temper colors) it's way hotter than you want for soft soldering.

That would be my take, low temp solder should not take enough heat to really change tempering. Silver soldering would. Soft solder is not really that strong was my point to begin with.

Is this the way a gunsmith would do this?

Actually a good question. I'm not a 'smith but I prefer as few pieces as necessary so I'd think about reshaping parts for a proper engagement. But have tricked out Mauser triggers as described by Dunlap. So long as it's safe and reliable and can't disassemble itself to cause an unsafe condition.

The Main question is the 430 Degree Melt Temp of the Solder I have going to require an amount of heat to start the steel to start changing colors ?
Or make the question easier,at what Temp would the steel start to change colors?

If the Piece ever fell off and I decide to solder it that is.

I would think that the Modification would be safe as it is just attached to the outside of the hammer and below the full cock notch to limit sear engagement,I would think that the worse thing that could happen is that if it fell off I would be right back where I started from with a trigger that has a little creep to it.

I would not think that there would be any real pressure on the piece with what it is designed to do ,would you ?

Look at the tempering charts for common hardenablr steel. If you're below 450F nothing happens. And gun parts are commonly tempered at a substantially higher temperature to avoid embrittlement problems. Ever see the edge of an overhard sear crumble? (A lot of PSI can develop on a sharp edge.) The big problem particularly with beginners (and open flames) is controlling the heat. Oh so easy to let the temperature get way higher than you want,

More like ~375 F, which is a pale straw color. Sear surfaces are kept harder than other parts, and are tempered at lower temperatures.

The claim that it's not likely to be a problem with a propane torch is completely bogus.

Yes, 430 F is into tempering range. That is the minimum melting point though - can you really control the temp that closely? I guarantee that (especially as a beginner) you're going to see temps of 500+ when you try to solder that. That puts you squarely into the middle range of tempering temps, and the sharp edges where it really matters (the sear surface) will get considerably hotter in an instant if exposed to the flame.

That is incorrect.

You already said you're not a gunsmith, but do you do any metal work and heat treating? I do, and am not guessing.

Yes I see what you mean
Maybe I would be better off to just stone the sear if the JB Weld does not hold ?

Yes, I do flame heat treat steel from time to time. Lessee, Noticeable color change happens around 440F depending on light and eyes.More commonly you're looking for around spring temper, blue, around 850F.

Now eutectic tin/lead solder with a bit of silver added (helps the flow) melts at 370F. My favorite alloy for electronics and low strength applications. Heat the joint up to 440F and you'll burn the usual flux Brownell's Hi Force 44 flows at 475F so you have more latitude before your flux burns. But there is absolutely no point in heating past the flow temperature.

Your numbers for steel colors seem to be way off. The charts do vary a little, most say ~390F for light straw color although the first image below (straight from Wiki) reflects what I see usually. 850F is definitely not blue, that's a dull grey for sure. The second image is another common chart that seems to be reasonably accurate in my experience.

I agree that there's no advantage to heating past the solder flow temperature, but you're mistaken if you think some areas of the part don't inadvertently get hotter than that, especially sharp corners like the sear surfaces. For someone new to soldering that is even more true; it takes a fair amount of practice and skill to hold the part at just the right temp without getting some of it too hot.

My reference materials are in the basement and I am not so I grabbed a chart like yours for convenience. If you can consistently see the light yellows you have better eyes than I do. I usually don;t see a change until over 400 and then colors are changing quickly even with indirect heating.And blue has always been spring temper though there is an area of "blue embrittlement" to avoid. But I can tell you from experience that with typical soft solder fluxes you start having problems getting them to work right when you get into the yellows. For smaller parts I prefer my big soldering gun or indirect heating. It's too hard to control the heat with a flame. Even with more massive parts you have to be careful and keep the flame moving. That's with soft solder. In that respect brazing is easier. But note, even Dunlop admitted he couldn't control heat carefully enough to silver solder a front sight without scaling an unprotected bore.

So I use the solder to test the temperature while heating carefully and stop when the solder flows well enough to make a nice fillet. That's all you really need to know besides cleanliness and choosing the right flux. The rest is practice. (You know this but maybe someone reading this doesn't.)