I have been asked to make a man’s gold wedding ring into something that can be worn as a fashion piece. I explained that I only work in silver to the gent but he is keen for me to do something for him.
Can I solder with silver directly onto the gold wedding band?
You can definitely solder silver to gold. I’ve done it a lot.
You do have to be careful about getting it too hot though as the metals can melt together pretty easily. I forget why? It’s a materials science question. Eutectic bonding I think?
When I solder silver to gold, I use silver solder, not gold solder as silver solder melts at a lower temp than gold solder. I watch carefully and pull the torch away quickly if I see the barest hint of over heating. But again, I’ve done it many times.
Good luck!!
Jeff
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That’s great Jeff. Thanks for your reply.
Hi Jeff,
You seem to be pretty informative so I wanted to ask you a question. My boyfriends father gave me his mothers engagement ring which is a gold wedding band. He doesn’t know how many kts it is and i’m guessing the color has changed over time. I have never worked with gold before and was wondering if you could give me some tips on where to buy gold and how to match the colors. He wants me to make the ring larger so he can wear it. I really don’t want to ruin this ring so i’m trying to get all the input I can. I have attached a photo.
I solder gold and silver together often. For me, the choice of which solder to use boils down to which one would be more difficult to remove if it goes where you don’t want it to go. Sometimes this doesn’t really matter as it won’t show. In that case, use silver, it is cheaper. As an example, I add tightly twisted 14 KY 18 gauge gold wire to some of my heavy gauge twisted silver wire bracelets. I use gold solder because I know that it will flow up the gold wire twist as well as flow into the fairly flat and easy to clean up silver. 14 KY solders melt around 1350 and flow around 1450, sterling melts around 1650, so be careful that you don’t melt the silver while waiting for the 14 KY solder to flow. Others will have different ideas as, like much of what we do, there isn’t an absolute answer. Good luck…Rob
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Thank you for your answer.
Almost all gold jewelry has a stamp inside that says what it’s made of. You should see a karat stamp inside. If the ring has been sized before it’s possible that the karat stamp has been filed away and has disappeared. If that’s the case, then the only way to tell what karat it is, is to use a gold tester.
I’m going to be honest. If you only have one gold ring to size, it’s probably cheaper, easier and more effective to take the ring to a jewelry store to get it sized. Especially if you don’t know what karat it is. The jewelry store can test the ring to determine what the karat the ring is. They’ll also check to see if the ring has been sized before they cut it open.
Most gold suppliers have a 1" minimum purchase of gold sizing stock. That’s probably way more than you need. You’ll also have to buy one pennyweight of hard gold solder (the minimum). You can easily spend spend a fair amount of money to get the materials just to size one ring.
You can get a ball park guesstimate of how much gold you’ll need by measuring the size of this ring and then measuring your boyfriend’s finger size. It’s approximate 2.5 mm distance for each ring size. So for instance, if you need to size the ring up two sizes, you’ll need 5 mm of added gold.
You could technically melt some gold scrap of the proper karat and color, then roll it out to size, but from your inquiry, I don’t think you want to do that.
If you decide to size the ring yourself, let us know and we can talk more about the process of how to size it.
It’s a beautiful ring with lots of sentimentality. You definitely want it to be done right.
Jeff
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Thank you for that information. I took it to a jeweler and they said its a little less that 14 karat. They also told me they can resize it for me (stretch the ring) to the size I need which is one size up. So I think Im gonna go with that option and practice with gold before I work with an important ring like this.
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That’s fantastic news! So very glad that it worked out!
Best of luck,
Jeff
I just wanted to make an observation, the pic you showed was the top of the ring not the business end (where the solder joint would be made. Things to consider would be : 1) how much metal is on the shank, and if there is enough metal to stretch 1 size there may be no need for soldering just annealing before stretching one size. 2) has it been sized before? 3) how important is a small difference in color if no gold solder is available (they make it in different karats, for the uninformed). Th marriage of metals is the proper term is a subject that one can easily find more information on which metals are compatible with each other and sometimes are used to alloy like copper and silver making sterling more wear resistant and attributed to the Easterlings, a European tribe of people known for their good alloys. Other’s believe differently.
The important fact is getting it to hot while working it will bring said copper to the surface and the metal will take on a reddish color called fire burn. Gold alloys are made with copper and are seen in black hills gold jewelry. As prices of metal goes up I am using more combinations of metals so I can make affordable jewelry. Example:
1000 fine silver bezel with copper back plate (hard soldered) laminated stainless steel to protect the wearer’s skin from turning green. Add a sterling jump ring and a chain that can be silver or stainless. Making a piece very affordable and won’t turn the customer’s skin green which is definitely the sign of cheap jewelry. And that is my 2cents worth (not copper anymore either)
STV
Rob has the word on this and I agree completely. Use gold solder where removing the overflow is easy.
Whenever I can and if it makes sense, I will slightly Tin the areas where the pieces are being soldered. This is when I am applying a fixture to a brooch or a pin. That way you are soldering solder to solder. When I am doing a main joint it’s always the tried and true. Make sure your joint is clean and it fits well, flux and heat and add the solder with a pick.
Like Rob said, and I know I have said before as well, everyone has their way.
Don Meixner
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I’ve done mixed metals… it’s more challenging that using monometals… however, it’s not that difficult at all… silver on gold and vice versa is pretty easy… I did mostly applique work. using brass and copper on silver is much harder… especially brass due to the zinc content… it makes it’s own solder when both silver and brass and in contact and heated…just be very careful of over heating…using low temperature solder, both gold and silver is they way to go…
So far as gold is concerned, I’ve used 90% coin gold which is nearly 22k, alloyed down to 18K by atomic weight%…bullion coins like austrian philharmonics and kruggerands are the easiest and cheapest way to by gold… I live in Rapid City SD where Black Hills Gold is made… the reds, greens and pink golds are low karat… 10-12kt gold, even 8kt… the high mixed metal content makes their melting points low… the gold/copper and silver/copper eutectic mixsture is about 40 atomic weight% copper for both alloys… the gold/ copper eutectic is at 900 degrees C or 1652 F… for silver/copper it’s down to about 1425 F… alloys containing three components are much more complicated… the phase relations are plotted on a 3D tetrahedron with the base of the tetradron being 100% of each metal…instead of eutectics, there are curved surfaces and ternary points… it’s much easier to find the melting point from tables of alloys…
Last thought on alloy compositions: there’s a difference between weight percent and atom or atomic weight percent… gold is much heavier than silver with an atomic weight of 197, silver at 108, copper at 63.5 (rounded off)… it will take proportionately more silver and even more copper by weight to make alloys of silver and gold mixed with copper. for 90% gold, the amount of copper would not be 10% by gross weight but 109/63.5 X 10 grams of copper per 100 grams of pure gold… the amount of copper is nearly twice as much as by weight percent.
Last thought on buying gold… you CAN buy gold at spot price thru some brokerage accounts… Morgan Stanley offers physical gold bars in one and ten ounce sizes at spot… you also CAN take delivery, with expenses being shipping and insurance… I bought a bunch as an inflation hedge at under $1500/oz.
The intent was to take delivery of one ounce fine gold bars to melt into 18K gold. Instead, I bought bullion coins when the gold market bottomed out at $250 an ounce about 20 or 25 years ago… gold spiked at 2K per oz about 10 or 15 years ago, fell back to 1.3K per oz, until 2 or 3 years ago when it started to climb to the current price of just under 2.4K/oz…I don’t think that this price will be sustainable… gold has kept up but not exceeded inflation over a 35 year period…
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