I was reading around on here and got to a UK thread. I havent seen “plumb” solder used anywhere here in the US, but i love how it works from what im reading. Do we have a supplier in the US? I do know the silver content in Europe is higher here in the US which im assumkng their solder has to be .925, but i want mine to be that quality.
Look at Hoover and Strong in Richmond VA. I suspect that most other metal refiners sell plumb gold solder…Rob
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Im reading that there is plumb silver too?
As far as I know there is no plumb silver solder, (at least in the US) like there is with gold solder. I’m going off of memory here, but I’m pretty sure that silver solder is a mixture of silver, copper, tin and zinc. The different silver solder melting temperatures are created by varying the proportions of the metals.
Plumb gold solder is different. 14 kt gold is 58% gold and 42% other metals, 18 kt is 75% gold and 25% other metals. To create plumb gold solders with different melting temperatures, they vary the proportions of the non-gold metals in the alloys.
As I remember, way back when before plumb gold solder was common, you’d use a lower karat gold to solder a higher karat gold. So you’d solder 14 kt with 10 kt gold and 18 kt with 14 kt gold, etc. That worked, but it lowered the overall karat of the finished piece, so plumb gold solder eventually became common.
It’s been so long since I’ve seen non-plumb gold solder that I’ve forgotten about all that.
I don’t know how you could make easy, medium and hard plumb silver solder? The 7.5% non-silver component in the sterling silver alloy isn’t much to play with to create multiple melting temperature solders.
One thing you want to make sure of is that you chose a non-cadmium alloy silver solder.
Jeff
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So i ordered off of amazon, 25 each. Cadmium free. Literally looks like regular hard solder to me lol Ill try it out and see.