Cutting small pieces of solder (silver)

Jewelry Discussion
1

'the rings and bracelets I make on the moment, has a design that
requires to solder small points from about 0.5 to 1.00 mm squire
every 2.5 mm to a band to cut the solder as small as possible, is
with my side cutter a irritating exercise, they have different sizes
and have the tendency to fly all over the place.

I use wire, made flat in the mill.

anyone has a smart and or creative idea to get even sized small
cuts? the solder cutter from rio grande article 111 607 will cut to
large pieces and reviews are not to good.

love to hear suggestions

peter
spain

2

Hello Peter,

I, too, flatten my solder wire in my rolling mill. I roll it
extremely thin, probably thinner than what you are doing. I cut it
into paillons using a small flush cuttter like Rio 111-066.

If you need really small paillons, roll the solder wire even thinner
than you’re doing currently, so that the flattened wire is wide
enough to cut into two strips. Then use the cutter to snip off very
thin, very small paillons.

If you cut the solder by inserting the wire from the convex side of
the cutter jaws and hold your finger over the concave side (where
the paillons will fall off), the paillons will not fly around your
bench or the room.

Hope this is helpful,
Linda Kaye-Moses

3

Try using a pair of good scissors. Cut a piece of solder sheet, say
an inch square (what ever size you want is fine). Then make a number
of cut along an edge what ever width you want/need, then cut across
all of the little thin strips you just cut, so that you are now
cutting small pieces of what ever size you are after. Do this
cutting in a pan, bowl, over a LARGE sheet of paper, in a box, in
something to catch all the pieces as they are cut off and
"released".

Does this make sense to you? If not, let me know and I will either
explain it more or take a couple of pictures. You should be able to
cut hundreds of pieces in just a few minutes and make them what ever
size you are after/needing.

john dach

4

i buy it in sheet and cut it with shears to whatever size I need for
the job. Rob

Rob Meixner

5

Peter,

I use sheet solder from Stuller. I use my aviation sheers as I can
cut metalvery easily with not much effort at all, and to a
surprisingly good degree of accuracy. Cut a “fringe” into the
rectangular sheet, with each cut NOT going all the way through. You
want these very thin strips to be still attachedat one end. When
that’s done, turn it by 90 degrees and cut across the strips to make
your tiny bits of solder. I am right handed, so hold the solder sheet
in my left hand and sheers in my right hand, and use spare fingers on
my left hand to “catch” the pieces by holding the back of the lower
blade, sothey don’t fly off somewhere. I do this over the container I
want the solder to go into, and now and then release the tiny pieces
into the container. My apologies if the above isn’t easy to
understand. It’s not always easy to describe how to do something
fiddly.

Helen
UK

6

Hi Peter

Rio Grande sells chip solder that is about 0.5 mm x 1 mm (Item
Number: 101201).

I have been using is for about a year and am happy with the
consistency/quality

Regards
Milt

7 
'the rings and bracelets I make on the moment, has a design that
requires to solder small points from about 0.5 to 1.00 mm squire
every 2.5 mm to a band to cut the solder as small as possible, is
with my side cutter a irritating exercise, they have different
sizes and have the tendency to fly all over the place.

This design is essentially a kind of granulation. Colloidal
soldering is the way to go, assuming the metal you are using will
support this technique.

Elliot Nesterman
ajoure.net

8

use a very coarse file on the solder. the resulting filings will
have pieces just large enough to pick up with a solder brush. you
might also consider melting a thin film of solder on the back of the
sheet of silver before you cut the small squares you need. have fun.
tom

9

Hi Peter,

Use solder powder, a mixture between the solder and flux. You can
buy it from RioGrande or make it yourself by filing solder that you
mix with flux into a paste. You can also use ready-made solder paste
available in syringes.

Powdered Solder for Russian Filigree
http://www.ganoksin.com/gnkurl/ep81om

Item Number: 132209

Metal type: Silver
Solidus temperature: 1,150 F (621 C)
Liquidus temperature: 1,200 F (649C)
Country of origin: United States

Best regards from Sweden
Hans Hansson

10 
anyone has a smart and or creative idea to get even sized small
cuts?

I use sheet solder.

I cut the edge with a scissors, the kind for cutting sheet solder,
so it looks like fringe.

Then I place my fingertip at the bottom of the fringe, and cut off
little snippets of whatever size I need.

Then I sprinkle them to my soldering block.

Of course you could buy them already clipped. Much neater.

stuller.com/browse/metals/537/

Paf Dvorak

11

Start with a sheet. Cut multiple strips thin as you want them in one
direction. Don’t cut them all the way off the sheet, just near the
ends.

Turn it 90 degrees and snip of the strips you made in whatever size
you need. Use a sheers or a heavy scissors. Solder snips are good as
long as they are in good shape. Do this over a big sheet of paper.
You can do hundreds in minutes.

12 
to cut the solder as small as possible, is with my side cutter a
irritating exercise, they have different sizes and have the
tendency to fly all over the place.

With sheet solder, or your flattened wire solder, instead of side
cutters or those odd solder clippers (which I don’t like either), use
a pair of good small shears or snips. Sometimes actually called
solder snips, they have jaws that look like small scissor blades,
rather than nippers.

Use the shears to cut paralell cuts into the sheet a little ways,
not all the way across, much like the teeth on a comb. Try to make
the cuts the same width if you want the same size pieces. the little
lengths will curl as you cut, so when you’ve cut enough lines, use a
flat plier to flatten the sheet again. You don’t need to get all the
curl out, just evenly flat enough so you can now cut across the first
line of cuts. Your index finger of the hand (in my case, my left
hand, as my right is holding the shears),extends under the shear jaw
(they’re small), and traps the little pieces on the other side of the
blade, so most of them stay where you’re in control. A few might get
away, but most will still be on your fingertip.

While it’s hard to get everything the exact same size, you can
usually get pretty close, and you can cut the bits quite small.

The other trick would be to draw your wire solder down to a smaller
wire. As small as you like. Then even longer pieces snipped off, will
be a small amount of solder. Another trick, is to wind the solder
wire up on a tiny mandrell (like a drill bit shank, if you like. Then
cut that coil to give a whole bunch of tiny rings. They will all be
the exact same size, and the exact same amount of solder. This is a
method often taught for how to make granules all the same size for
granulation, and it can work just as well when you need exact
amounts of wire solder. Drawing the wire down to a smaller size, and
using a smaller drill bit shank to wind the coil on (there may be
other things you can use as a mandrel, but I’ve not found anything
better) can give you quite small amounts of solder or metal. I like
to use the very thin seperating disks (.006 inch thick) to cut the
coils. Easier and quicker than a saw.

And finally, be aware that if you always use your solder the same
sizes, many metals suppliers, at least the bigger ones, can sell you
solder already in the form of clippings. Whether they are available
in the size you need, you’d have to ask. But maybe…

Peter

13

I have one of the Rio solder clippers you mention. I have figured
out that the way to cut small pieces is to use the cutter to
"nibble"-- that is to say, take partial bites instead of sliding the
solder all the way across the opening. In this way, you can cut
slivers as small as you wish, though not necessarily consistent in
size. It would be nice if these cut smaller automatically, or were
adjustable.

That said, I would go with the pre-cut solder if I were you. It is
very convenient. As long as you don’t spill it!

Noel

14

Tom- Great technique. I’ve used it to great effect. A technique I
learned form a very very fine Thai trained chain maker. In addition I
tell folks to be sure to run a strong magnet through the filings to
remove any traces of the ferrous metal from the file that my end up
in the pile solder.

When using sheet solder I always close my rolling mill all the way
and run the solder sheet as thin as I can get it. The pallions look
bigger and are easier to pick up, but then melt down into really tiny
bits of solder.

Have fun and make lots of jewelry.

Jo Haemer
timothywgreen.com

15

Pro tip!

Roll you sheet solder out on the mill like you’ve been doing with
the wire.

Gets a lot more milage out of it in my experience.

16

Peter,

I like to use the very thin seperating disks (.006 inch thick) to
cut the coils. Easier and quicker than a saw.

When you do the above, what do you hold the coil with and on to keep
them all together? I’ve been trying to think of a way to do just that
but without buying the ‘system’ I’ve seen that does it (part of a
kit, I think,

Cheers,
Becky

17 
I like to use the very thin seperating disks (.006 inch thick) to
cut the coils. Easier and quicker than a saw. 

When you do the above, what do you hold the coil with and on to
keep them all together?

as I mentioned, I usually wind the wire on the lower shank portion of
small drill bits (chuck the bit into your #30 handpiece, reversed so
the shank extends instead of the cutting part of the drill, to “power
wind” the coil). And I leave the coil right on the drill. I grab the
drill with a pair of needle nose pliers where the wire meets the
first grooved part of the drill, holding both the drill and wire,
locking everything in place, and with the coil extending away from me
and the plier jaws. Then the seperating disk, which is rotating
towards me (wear eye protection), cuts the coil along the top
surface. The rotation of the disk pushes the rings back towards the
coil this way, instead of driving them off the drill to fly all over
the place. Easier to do than to explain. But the key is to cut the
rings on whatever your using as a mandrel. That drill bit shank gets
grooved from this, so they don’t last forever. But there always seem
to be a few more drill bits around that no longer are usable as
drills anyway, so that’s OK.

The “systems” use a cage type jig to hold the coils because their
mandrels don’t benefit much from getting all cut up, but tiny drill
bits are pretty expendable.

Peter

18

whups! That last email from me was supposed to end with a link,
here: here: http://www.ganoksin.com/gnkurl/ep81oy

Cheers again,
Becky

19

All of you

thanks a lot for all the responses,

To respond to some of them;

John Dach, I have to admit that for some reason I never thought
about using scissors…! What is embarrassing when you think about
it!

Hans Hanson, thanks for the links I will try this one out one of
this days

Peter Rowe, I like this idea of the small rings, by using small
drill bits plus separation disc, because I can also see an
additional benefit of “hanging” the solder to prevent falling off
when soldering. On top of that I have lots of spend drill bits and
spend burs laying around.

Rebecca, 248 us$ for cutting solder! I have no problem to spend
money on tools, but this is a step to much for me, for that money I
can buy a mountain of pre cut solder.

Jo Haemer, referring to Tom great technique, for some reason I can
not find “tom” in the tread tree

Elliot Nesterman, I have to look up what colloidal soldering is,
Google should give the answer I hope Again, thanks guys!

Peter
Spain