I am a frame builder AMA

adamsgas.co.uk deliver in South London for £12 and most of North for £22. The 9l hobby size bottle is about £40 with 55 deposit. Save a lot on delivery compared to a lot of places.

Anyone got the Rattle CAD install file still in their downloads?

Anyone want to buy a couple of Coba hole saws?
These are recomended by many a frame builder.

Usually £10 each.
For you £12.50 inc UK postage (as I'm not in London)

£40/ bottle plus delivery? I got a used oxygen concentrator for not much more than that . Propane uses more oxygen than acetylene, and waiting for the next delivery when you run out on Sunday morning is pretty annoying.

Thanks for sharing this! Would save effort :-)

@Biggles567
@coldharbour
Thanks for the recommendations.

Yes but you can just download from the www?

Everything executable on sourceforge seems to be gone.

I need a macOS version. The files in all the links on the website have disappeared and now there is only a single file available which is a .kit and that doesn't work for me

Yeah that ^^

Ah no then I have it for PC but got rid of my Mac last year anyhow I can send the exe though possibly but exe files get hammered by those pesky mail scanners

Might work. If you don't mind, that would be great. Can always install at work!

might work here

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• rattleCAD_3.4.04.19-win32-x86_64.exe

Awesome thanks. I’ll give it a try

http://www.rattlecad.com/download.html aye looks like rattlecad has gone to industry 4.0 and you now have to pay to use it...might explain why the exes all went off of sourceforge

Right, boric acid as flux.

I just can't get on with it. Tried again last night and having a few issues,

1. It doesn't mix into a nice smooth paste, its very granular.
   
2. Possibly as a result of point 1, it doesn't paint onto parts nicely. Using an acid brush
   (as I do with Sif-flux) it just seems to want to collect in the bristles and very little stays on the metal. I also find it hard to balance between it being too wet and just dripping and running everywhere and being too dry and just clumping up in the little dish I was mixing it in.
   
3. Point 2 only gets worse once I've got things up to temp and try to brush on some more. If anything Sif-flux becomes even easier to apply one the piece is hot.
   
   

I've read of people using a mortar and pestle to grind up boric acid to make it a finer powder before mixing it into a paste but this seems like a lot of hassle.

I've got pics somewhere using boric acid, I'll try and dig them out.

If I've got a frameset with some sloppy lugs (overfilled). Could I just file it clean and crisp before a respray?

Yes but it is time consuming and make sure you don't under cut the tubes

Undercut the tubes? Guess you mean I don't file too deep? Any recommendation on a file set for the job? Thanks.

Yes exactly.

A needle file set and some emory cloth would be my approach. But my lug work ain't that fancy.

Fluxed up with boric acid. Doesn't go on amazingly, bit gritty, bit watery. Don't worry though, it will wet out. Also, you can ad a squeeze of fairy liquid to keep it stuck if you need to. On the tacked photo you can see it looks "cooked". It isn't, and will run out again, but is quite confusing if you don't know. Tinned pass is next, then full fillet. As you can see mostly looks glassy, looks cooked at the edges but again this is the same weird undercooked cooked thing.

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Of you feel you are under fluxed. Stop, give it a mo to cool down a tad then whack on some more boric acid. It will adhere much better as the water evaporates straight away. The other picture here is after a 5 minute soak, and you can see most of the flux has already gone, no chargrilled flux etc.

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Tldr: it's not as easy to use than the expensive stuff, but it's super cheap and works a treat once you've got your head around it. I'd suggest keep on with it, it's one of those things that will just click.

Cheers, I’ll give it another bash. I’ll add the fairy liquid and see if that helps.

Will look out for the undercooked cooked thing.

I like that post soak pic, I’m finding that the Sif-flux goes really thick and glassy, esp where I’ve probably chucked too much on (I figure too much is better than too little so I’m pretty liberal with it) and even an overnight soak isn’t getting rid of all of it.