Hi All, It seemed that whilst I was at the Midlands show recently I inadvertently started something of a heated argument. I was buying some lengths of free-cutting mild steel (what I know as EN1A). As far as I know it is made free-cutting by the inclusion of a small percentage of lead. I said to the seller that I had recently seen reference to the fact that this steel could not be welded. I asked if this extended to silver soldering - could this steel be silver soldered? The seller (perhaps to protect his products) said that he regularly welded this material and I was silly for suggesting such a thing. At this moment another by-stander, who had obviously been listening said that it was impossible to weld EN1A. He was not able to explain just why, or what happened if you tried, but he did know that it was due to the presence of lead in the steel. The argument started to get quite serious, so I excused myself and I guess I must have been the catalyst (perhaps an active catalyst!), as the discussion also subdued. However there was no conclusion to the matter. So Gentlemen - I come back to my original question, can you silver solder EN1A? As a subsidiary - can it be welded? Cheers, Roger Mason, in St. Agnes. MODEL ENGINEERING DISCUSSION LIST. To UNSUBSCRIBE from this list, send a blank email to, modeleng-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with the word "unsubscribe" in the subject line.