[MisterTea]

> It isn't designed for steel but some kind of protection must be done at connections or arcing will be a major risk.

Not so much arcing but resistance between the terminal and the wire will increase as a coating of oxide builds up between the two. Eventually the resistance is high enough that dangerous amounts of heat will build up and ignite wire insulation or other flammable materials. What usually happens, is the conductor was nicked by the electrician during stripping and that becomes a mechanical weak point that becomes a fuse link and the wire sometimes just melts off at that point rapidly without starting a fire and goes open circuit.

> melt some lead and dip the exposed part of the wire in that to coat it.

Plain molten lead isn't going to "wet" the steel wire without some sort of flux. Rosin flux is made from tree sap of a conifer tree so go find a pine tree and harvest some sap.

[jaclaz]

You don't really need "rosin flux", the idea is to remove oxidation, chloridric acid is what was used for tin soldering, "saturated" with zinc.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zinc_chloride#As_a_metallurgic...

Though I have no idea if either can be found locally.

[MisterTea]

> Though I have no idea if either can be found locally.

Which is specifically why I mentioned rosin. Though any acid could likely be used so citric acid or something that could work as well.

[jaclaz]

Yep, but I don't think that just acid is good enough.

Choridric acid + Zinc was traditionally used in tin (but lead isn't so much different) soldering/brazing, particularly of copper and brass because the Zinc had some role in the chemical reaction, AFAIK.

[hinkley]

borax?

[genewitch]

I would think that's a different type of "flux" as it's commonly used for cleaning gold and preventing gold from sticking to the crucible. then again, flux is just an acid, so who knows.

[hinkley]

I've been watching too much blacksmithing on Youtube. It can be used for laminating iron, that much I do know. Not sure about brazing.