Once again I am having a problem soldering connections for a
chain on a large pendant.
Hi, Michael: I would like to quickly describe how I do soldering
and others can add to it as they wish. I feel I know exactly why
your have problems. I beleive there are only five reasons why
solder does not flow where you want it too. 1. Not enough heat, I
tell my students that if it does not solder with in 60 seconds to
turn up the torch! 2. Not enough flux. I teach that with silver
solder you can never have too much flux! Ofcourse, you can as far
as just soaking your charcoal block or soldering pad, but not as
far as a good solder joint. 3. Not getting the silver hot enough,
quick enough. The solder becomes oxidized (dirty) and does not
want to flow. 4. It is not solder! Now and then a student cuts a
small piece of bezel or sheet off and then mistakes it for
solder. 5. The piece that I am solder is dirty. I usually just
throw it in to the pickle for a while and start over.
I believe that not getting the piece hot enough is the reason
for about 95% of the time. Sterling silver solders differently
than any other metal that I know of. Because it conducts heat
better than any art metal that I use, it has to be heated
different than copper, brass, nickle, or gold. It conducts heat
so well that the whole piece must be throughly heated before
going to your solder joint. I teach that after putting on the
solder to start heating the piece at the farthest point away
from the solder as possilbe.
By the way, I teach all my students to solder every solder joint
with “hard” solder. It melts at about 1500 degrees. This means
they have to get good with the torch. If you visit my web site at
http://www.frii.com/~dnorris, all the jewelry there was done by
my students with all hard solder. Most were done by beginners
that never knew what solder was five weeks before they finish
that piece or pieces on their page. We do not “wire” things
together either!
I believe that you need to get the pendent piece hotter, and
hotter quicker than the chain pieces. Keep your flame on the
pendent until you see the solder flow on it first, then heat the
chain pieces. All “soft” solders like the ones you memtioned will
not stay polished like your sterling silver. I teach that you
should use nothing but hard solder, because of just that,
polishing. I like to solder a piece, and polish it so that you
can never see the solder joints when I am finished. So that it
looks as if it was cast. Think of it is way. To make “easy
(1325)”, “medium (1360)”, and hard (1450), they have to add more
and more “junk” metals to bring down the flow temperatures. I
like hard because it polish almost as if it was sterling and
stays that way for years and years. My wife has pieces that I
polished over 20 years ago, haven’t touch since, and you can not
see any black oxidized solder lines.
Here is a real quick step by step of how I teach soldering. I do
not have time to explain why, but will in April on the
Silversmithing for Beginner list:Jewelrymaking@listbot.com. I am
working on the Steam Casting “Class” about two hours a day. So it
is quick and short, but I hope it helps.
- set the piece up on a solder surface of your choice. I like
charcaol blocks for a lot of reasons. 2. cut some hard solder. I
use only sheet solder, cut in to large pieces compared to most
silversmiths. About 1/8 x 1/4 inch is my average size. Some times
I use pieces twice that size. I refuse to put several “snipits”
on when I can put one large piece on. Remember, I use only hard
solder, if I was using easy, I would have to use very small
pieces, because of the ugly solder joints it makes. 3. light the
torch of your choice. All the jewelry on my web site made by the
students are made with a $10.00 torch from Ace Hardware! The
world’s worst torch to use for silversmithing, but I am
extremely proud of their work, especially their first pieces. By
the way I am not the type of teacher that does the work for my
students, it is theirs all theirs. 4. spray on Dixon’s self
pickling flux. That’s right, I spray it on. I was taught by an 80
year old silversmith, almost 30 years ago. He had gotten quite
shaky, and could not “paint” on flux with out completely moving
everything. So one night I tried putting flux in a spray bottle
and spraying it on. It worked great and I have use it every
since. Of course, I have found that I did not invent the wheel. I
have talked to many people who have done used spray bottles years
before I did! Everything that I teach was taught to me by
someone! I just have tried to use the best method for me. 5. heat
the piece only enough to dry the flux past the “crusty” stage. 6.
spray on more and heat again if it did not get completely
covered with flux. I flux the whole piece every time! 7. useing
bent tweezers that are spring loaded to shut, place the solder on
the joints. Use lots, if your using hard solder, almost none if
you are using easy. 8. begin heating the piece as far away from
the joint as possilbe. I teach my students to keep the torch
moving so that their reaction time is increased. They can get off
the piece quicker if they are already in motion. 9. watch for the
silver to start to change color as the torch moves over it. It
will start to “shimmer”, not as shimmer when it melts, but a
color change for sure. 10. watch for the Dixon’s flux to puddle
and then melt in to a “syrupy” brown thick puddle. I watch the
flux more than any thing else to know what temperature my silver
is at. I believe it must melt and flow into this syrup stage at
about 1350 to 1400 degrees. 11. when the flux does it’s syrupy
thing I move the torch to the joint and at the same time move it
up slightly away from the piece. This is how I adjust the
temperature of the piece and it heats up a larger area, which I
belive you need in order to solder silver. (gold is just the
opposite, I think). 12. the split second the solder flows, get
off it!! and I mean off it! I would like to shout this. I have
found that you can rarely fix anything by simply adding more
heat, after the solder has flowed. 13. there is no 13 (unlucky
you know!) If it did not solder ask yourself which of the five
reasons was responsible, pickle your piece for about 10 minutes,
take a break, eat something, or at least I do, then come back and
start with step 1.
Gosh, I am sorry about the length of this, I hope it helps.
Remember, please, this is just MY WAY, and it works for me. I
hope it works for you.
Don Norris
@Donald_Norris
PO Box 2433 Estes Park, CO 80517