1 Dec
2003
1 Dec
'03
9:28 a.m.
Pete Turnbull wrote:
No, it was Muriatic Acid according to the label. I went looking for it
after I ran out (it lasted about 10 years) and when I couldn't find it,
I bought the Muriatic Acid. My understanding is that Muriatic Acid is
33% strength Hydrochloric Acid. I used quite a bit of it for cleaning
tin-lead plating when I still owned the printed circuit shop. To head
off comments I've heard before, tin-lead gets plated (NOT solder), and
the tin-lead later in the process gets fused to form the solder alloy.
For quite a while, I had a small bottle of Acid
Flux that was
basically
Muriatic Acid, and it worked like a charm.
Actually, it was probably mostly zinc chloride, made by dissoving
granular zinc (or old battery cases) in hydrochloric acid. Known here
as Bakers Fluid. The raw acid would be too strong, and lose its
efficacy too quickly.