This is interesting. I don't think it's heat, as I have found the higher heat produced by my soldering g*u*n works much better than when I used a lower wattage iron. Now I'm really curious what it is that's causing this. Like I said above I used to use special liquid flux made for stainless steel and special solder, but discovered that thorough prep using the method above alleviated the need for those materials.

Still, with both you and Pars experiencing difficulties I'm wondering what I might have missed in describing my technique.

Robbie; yeah I think I struck a chord here. Who knew the wool and moustache crowd would be interested in trying a more involved, expensive, environmentally hazardous, and sometimes frustrating method to do something? Ha!