At 08:36 AM 7/27/2013, Larry Alofs wrote:
>could be repaired by soldering a piece of copper wire across the break.  By
>carefully picking away at the cracked coating I located the bad spot,
>scraped the ends of the exposed wire, and soldered a patch successfully.

Larry, those resistance elements are not likely to be soft-solderable
by ordinary means as they tend to have high concentrations of nickel
and chromium.  You'd likely have better luck with silver brazing.

I suspect you have a contact joint but not a real bond.

Yours,
David