I have one of each. The titanium one I use for gold and silver work,
and the tungsten one I use for Platinum. I used to think I could use
the Ti for everything, until I accidentally contaminated a platinum
ring shank with it, when it got too hot. (it looked like a 4th of
July sparkler) and I had to R&R the contaminated portion of the
shank at my own expense. I’ll never do that again.
At my company (we are not jewelers, we make musical instruments), we
solder with wire. The wire is held by a narrow tube of copper
(available at hobby shops) which has been lead-soldered along one
side of a pair of tweezers. The tube takes a little bend away from
the points of the tweezers so that the wire comes out just a little
distance away from the points. All of our brazing (silver soldering)
is done this way. Torch in one hand, tweezers in the other. The
solder is always at the ready, near the work. We never have to put
anything down in order to pick up the solder. Just feed the proper
amount of wire into the joint. This takes a little practice, as the
solder is necessarily not pre-measured. We use a few different wire
solders (different melting temps) and a few different thicknesses:
.019", .025" and .033". Sometimes a fixture is used to hold the
pieces in place. I have never seen jewelers use this
tweezer-with-tubing arrangement but wonder if it would have
applications in jewelry-making.
Elizabeth Watson
At my company (we are not jewelers, we make musical instruments), we solder with wire. The wire is held by a narrow tube of copper
I’ve seen a version of this in use at a spectacle factory in
Australia. They used easiflo solder and flux to join the pre-made
bridge and eyewire parts held in jigs. The solder, liquidus 610degC,
was 1mm dia wire threaded into brass tubing (tubing was insulated
with tape) and the extra wire coiled up at the top of the tube. This
was just the solder applicator. But adding tweezers is quite
brilliant.
Actually perhaps I’d prefer to join the tubing to a soldering pick
instead of tweezers… Depends… I’ll try both!
Brian
Auckland
New Zealand
www.adam.co.nz