Solder won't stick to silver

Jewelry Discussion
1

Hi all,

I am having trouble with a silver piece for a customer. I have
created a sterling silver band of less than 1mm thick, and need to
solder two jumprings to it. I am using Borax flux and easy solder
pallions. The first jumpring soldered to the band after many
attempts, but I can’t get the second one to solder to the piece. The
solder is very slow to run. I can solder other pieces, but for the
life of me, it just won’t stick to this piece of work. It just beads
and if I do try to add the jumpring, it won’t stick to the band. I
have annealed the silver many times. Could that have affected
something?

Thanks in advance for any help you can offer.

Angel

1 Like
2

Perhaps the piece is not as clean as you may think. Try filing at
the point of contact to get fresh metal exposed. I’ve found this to be
helpful with jump-rings…grind a small flat on the JR, flow a small
amount of solder onto the flat, heat the piece, when the flux looks
right bring in the JR. No solder jumping and the heat is flowing
from piece to JR.

3 
I am having trouble with a silver piece for a customer. I have
created a sterling silver band of less than 1mm thick, and need to
solder two jumprings to it.

When soldering jumprings onto a larger piece I first solder the
jumpring by placing the solder pallion under the joint of the
jumpring and heat it from above. Then when soldering the jumpring
onto the larger piece I place or hold the jumpring against the piece
and heat the larger piece occasionally flashing over to the jumpring
when the large piece reaches soldering temperature, usually when the
flux melts.

Make sure the pieces to be soldered are clean. I use alcohol to
clean things then don’t touch them with my fingers. Also clean your
solder. If the silver or solder is tarnished use abrasives to make it
shiny before soldering.

HTH

Rick Copeland
Silversmith and Lapidary Artisan
Rocky Mountain Wonders
Colorado Springs, Colorado
http://rockymountainwonders.com