Soldering copper can be tricky. I solder a lot of copper. Sometimes
I use copper on copper and sometimes I solder it onto silver. I have
a few suggestions that have worked for me over many years of playing
with fire. Try this.
-
Flux the copper with LOTS of flux. Copper is notorious for forming
fire scale. Flux often burns off before the copper has reached solder
temperature so be sure you are using the proper flux. -
Copper solders at an alarmingly bright red color! Don’t get scared
and pull the flame away too soon thinking you are close to melting
the project. You aren’t. If you pull the flame away, you allow air
to get to the copper and you get nasty scaling and peeling as well as
cooling of the piece. -
Use a big, loud, hot flame. Don’t feather the flame over the piece
to warm it up first. Don’t mamby-pamby around with it; get in there
and cook it! Engulf the well fluxed piece in the flame at once. The
technique is = totally against what you were taught in jewelry
school. The idea is to keep the air away from the copper and get it
up to that “scary red” ASAP. You must be really brave and commit
yourself to soldering that thing when
you first touch the flame to it. Put it in water before you put it
in the acid. It will probably have some flakes on it and you don’t
want that junk in the acid pot. This technique always works for me.
Hope you have success with it too.
Susan Maxon
Honors Gran Jewelry
Palm Harbor, Florida