Best solder for brass

Jewelry Discussion
1

Hi all,

I started learning jewellery making with silver and want to switch
to brass as my working material. What is the best solder for
soldering brass? Are there really such thing called brass solder?
Please kindly advice.

THANKS!
Vivian

2

The usual solder for brass is industrial quality silver solder;
contrast with the silver solder used by jewellers, which has a
higher silver content.

It does the soldering job fine, but the colour match is poor. I’ve
used Johnson Matthey “Mattibraze 34” to solder brass; it gives a
very good colour match, much better than normal silver solder. MP is
610-670C (1130-1238F) and it contains Cd.

Regards, Gary Wooding

3

In my metalsmithing I class (I’m a newbie to the world of soldering)
we use copper and brass. We use silver solder and it works great on
both metals. We had to practice butt joints, T joints and sweat
joints on copper (silver solder) before moving onto our current
projects, rings made of brass. We saw and file the top layer of 22g
brass and solder that onto 20g brass. Oncethe flat layers are
soldered together, the ring is shaped and the edges soldered
together. That’s where I’m at now - going to reshape, sandpaper and
patina it next Monday.

Our first project was a sawn and filed brass pendant - I made a
fairly intricate Egyptian Eye of Horus triangular pendant. The ring
has hieroglyphics on it so I’m firmly in an Egyptian frame of mind.

4

Search the Orchid Archives for many discussions on this issue.

Judy Bjorkman

5

thanks a lot gary! How about ‘Sheet Solder for Brass, Bronze and
Gold-Filled’ from Rio Grande (Item Number: 503052)?

Is the colour match good too?

Cheers,
Vivian