morley
03-21-2014, 10:11 AM
A friend and I are working on converting an old salad bar cooler into a flat pan for sugaring. I know it is stainless, but not sure what grade or gauge. I have a couple concerns about trying to use it as a pan.
1. The corners overlap on the sides and have been spot welded, then soldered. My concern is that it is lead solder as this was an older unit. What is the best way to remove the existing solder, and are there any recommendations as to what type of lead free solder to use?
2. As mentioned it was a cooling unit previously, there have been threaded bolts welded to the bottom and the sides of this. They were used to hold the copper cooling lines to the sides and the bottom of our pan. Will these cause issues with any warping. They are about .25 to .375 in long I would guess there are 10 or so in each row going across and probably 8 rows of them.
Thanks in advance for any input you provide. I have already learned a bunch. Hoping to put this pan on a block arch for this year. May try to finish our 265 oil barrel arch but thinking that will be for next year.
1. The corners overlap on the sides and have been spot welded, then soldered. My concern is that it is lead solder as this was an older unit. What is the best way to remove the existing solder, and are there any recommendations as to what type of lead free solder to use?
2. As mentioned it was a cooling unit previously, there have been threaded bolts welded to the bottom and the sides of this. They were used to hold the copper cooling lines to the sides and the bottom of our pan. Will these cause issues with any warping. They are about .25 to .375 in long I would guess there are 10 or so in each row going across and probably 8 rows of them.
Thanks in advance for any input you provide. I have already learned a bunch. Hoping to put this pan on a block arch for this year. May try to finish our 265 oil barrel arch but thinking that will be for next year.