... I was told it would also cause cracking. What is your
experience with binding wire? Have you used it successfully with
all grades of Argentium solder, or just the Argentium Easy??
Hello Debra,
I use binding wire all the time with Argentium Sterling (AS). I
couldn’t imagine doing my work without it. And yes, will all grades
of solder that I normally use with AS which is all of them excluding
Hard grade standard silver solder. So I’d say you were told wrong.
While I’m sure one could set things up in such a way that it would appear as if the binding wire cased cracking I would venture to say
that it was the binder of the wire that was, in fact, responsible.
If I were to set up a situation where binding wire would “crush” a
standard sterling soldering set-up would we then conclude that
binding wire crushed sterling silver? Or might it be more likely that I crushed the sterling by setting up the job improperly?
All of the materials we use have their limitations and their points
of failure. We owe it to ourselves and to each other as responsible
workers in the trade to accept that pushing them beyond those limits
is a worker’s mistake, not an inherent flaw in the material.
No offense to you personally but sooner or later these reports of odd
goings-on with Argentium Sterling need to be fielded with a little
more personal accountability. The “quirks” of AS are few and far
between and have, in general, been fairly well documented here and
elsewhere. I suggest that one might approach such situations by asking
how one would go about doing what they need to do with AS rather than
–and please forgive my inarticulateness-- peddling these fishy old
wives tales. This is not directed at you but is intended as an
observation on this sort of thing in general.
Your post implies that you have used binding wire successfully. I
was told it would also cause cracking. What is your experience with
binding wire? Have you used it successfully with all grades of
Argentium solder, or just the Argentium Easy??
Hi Debby!
I have not had any problem using binding wire with Argentium
Sterling Silver. I have not used all the Argentium solders with it,
since they are new, but I have used regular medium silver solder,
which melts at a similar temperature to Argentium Hard.
For production jump rings, Argentium's lower conductivity means you
can use a Pulse Arc Welder with much better results to close the
jump rings than with regular SS.
Ardell’s comments and Cindy’s writeup have me to wondering… has
anyone yet had a chance to play with this stuff under a water torch?
If so, how have you found it to be to work with? I’m using the
HydroFlux welder (or will be, once again, as soon as the broken bones
in my left wrist and hand heal), so what’s most intriguing of all to
me is this alloy’s lower conductivity, given the diminutive sizes of
my torch tips. I’m also curious whether my torch’s innate fluxing
will work for or against me with AS, or whether there’ll be any
effect, at all. Has anyone been down this road, yet?
I have had real problems using binding wire with Argentium. Even the
very smallest amount of pressure on my metal has caused cracks when
soldering with medium solder. I am always very careful that my pieces
fit very well together and I do not use binding wire to force them to
fit, just to keep them in place.
As I said in my original post about this, the problems I am having
may be because I am using Argentium I bought 4 years ago from a
company in the UK who no longer supply it. I read somewhere that the
alloy has improved since then and I am wondering whether my stock
doesn’t perform as well as the new stuff. Since others don’t seem to
be having a problem with cracking, I am beginning to think that this
is the case.
I am not peddling fishy old wives tales, just reporting my
experience with the Argentium I have.
So I really hope I haven’t put anyone off using Argentium, I too
think it’s a great metal to work with.
I have had real problems using binding wire with Argentium. Even
the very smallest amount of pressure on my metal has caused cracks
when soldering with medium solder.
Hello Eva,
Sorry to hear that you’re having these problems Eva but it really
does sound as if there’s something not quite right. The description
of your difficulties leads me to suspect that there may indeed be
something fundamentally different between the old alloy that you’re
using and that which I, for instance, have been working with.
I for one have never had such problems with Argentium Sterling (AS)
and the bulk of my work to date sounds similar to your set-ups (ie.
Medium grade standard silver solder). I did have one piece “crush”
under extreme heat but that was no surprise because I was
experimenting with Hard grade regular silver solder which is not
recommended for use with AS and, if I recall correctly, I was using
fairly heavy binding wire.
Related to this, I have talked to production supervisors using AS in
a factory environment and they use binding wire extensively to
assemble their AS hollowware and cast goods. To be fair though I
understand that they usually use fairly Easy grades of solder.
Will you be trying some newer material to compare your results? I
realize that might be easier said than done but it might be a way out
of the woods on this one.
Another possibility comes to mind. If you’d be willing to send me a
small piece of your old AS stock I’d be more than happy to run a few
tests on it to see how it performs in comparison to the material I’ve
been using. Now that I say that I realize that that may not be the
most attractive option in the world for you but, well, there it is I
guess. I’d be happy to send you an equivalent amount of my AS stock
in return if that helps any.