Do soldered pans break easy?

[philkasza]

I have a 5x12 1978 Small Brothers evaporater and I was wondering how hard it is to break the solder.

[brookledge]

Do you mean break fittings off? Because it would be realitively easy to snap off a connector from the flue pan to the syrup pan or something like that but otherwise the solder itself shouldn't be that weak to break it as you questioned.
Keith

[seclark]

do you want to break it or just wonder how it will stand up.if it lasted this long I guess it's strong enough.That being said I think how you work with it is how strong it will be.

[OhioMapleMan]

Being a 1978 it will probably have lead solder in the pan. The small brother’s equipment that I got rid of from that era had lead solder. It is actually more flexible than the lead free solders are. Rigid connections between pans will have a tendency to crack if some type of a flex connector is not used. Contraction and expansion of joints over time may form a crack. This is usually an easy fix with the correct flux for ss, large iron, (not a torch) and correct lead free solder. Last summer I removed all the lead solder from two ss steam hoods and redid all the joints with lead free solder.