I have a 14ky band with a 14kw head soldered in it. It is holding a
1ct. dia. I have tried pulling the head with a pair of tweezers
attached to the head for weight, then the tweezers were attached to
the band for weight. I can not get the head and the band separated.
It looks like there was extra solder on the base of teh head and it
was blended into the band. The band is 4.5x1.2 half round. The head
is 5mm at the base where it is soldered. The head is pegged.
Any suggestions on getting this pulled w/o cutting it off would be
greatly appreciated.
Right off the bat I would try heating it up without a tweezers
attached. Often cross-locking tweezers can act as a heat sink and
will keep the solder from flowing.
If it is soldered with hard 14-k solder it may take some steady heat
to pull it off.
If its a toughie the best thing is to cut, no risk of melting that
way.
If you wanna try one more time first consider this…Mount the ring
sturdily upside down ON something. Not the head but the shoulders
adjacent to it. A third hand is usual insufficient by itself, you can
use one to steady the assembly but do not rely on it for pressure.
Cut an appropriate groove in a charcoal block or something so that
the ring itself is quite immobile but the head does not touch the
block and you have flame access to the faceup position of the head.
Heat carefully and evenly inside and out until you see the solder get
close to melting. Use a sharpened steel tool to press down against
the underside of the peg(which is actually pointing up) when you hit
the melt temp.
If you’re going to replace the head with another peg mount be sure
to drill or ream the hole. Any residual solder in the old hole can
possibly interfere with hot alignment… it may shift when the old
solder flows…an annoying thing to say the least because now you
have to start all over again!