Nice lookin’ tank restoration! I also have trouble soldering stuff like that. It’s like trying to solder on a big heat-sink. I find that using a soldering iron tip that clamps on the end of a propane torch flame helps, and lots of acid flux, but I still kind of suck at doing it. Maybe an old-time large-head iron with a lot of mass to it that you set in the bracket on top of an old-time gasoline torch with the end in the flame until it’s really hot would help do the job. I once watched a guy use one of those to seal up seams after rerouting large steel air feeder pipes that fed air to racks of music pipes on a vintage church pipe organ. I have my grandfather’s old gasoline torch, but not the big iron. Photo below of the kind of torch I’m talking about – the “hook” on top and notch in front above where the flame comes out held the soldering iron in place while it heated up.
In the 2nd photo, the biggest irons is what I’m thinkin’ to use with the old torch. On the other hand, maybe I won’t ever have to solder another tank? Ha!
Dave
