Still can't solder right

I just spent the better part of today soldering gold jump rings, and
a few silver ones, into a chain. First, I use a Smith "Little Torch"
with propane and oxygen and a #4 tip. I lay half of the rings in
rows on a ceramic soldering pad with each joints lying on a small
solder chip, properly fluxed of course. I prefer charcoal blocks for
this but happen to be out of them just now. Bringing the flame near
but not on the ring until the solder jumps into the joint, I move to
the next, which has been heated by it’s proximity to the last one,
solder it, and so on. Then I hang two soldered rings in an open one,
close it and using fine, bent tipped soldering tweezers, hold the
unsoldered ring at a point directly opposite the joint and lay the
tweezers down on the soldering block with the ring to be soldered
straight up from the block. I melt a fluxed solder chip into a ball
and pick it up on the point of my soldering pik.( I’ve found a
titanium bicycle spoke works very sell for this purpose.) After the
joint is fluxed , I heat it with a fairly sharp flame, holding the
solder ball fairly close to the joint and when it is hot enough,
touch the ball to the joint and it flows in an instant. Don’t try to
solder it with the joint lying on the soldering pad. Hold it up in
the air with the soldering tweezers. Works for me. :slight_smile:

Jerry in Kodiak

I started making jewelry when I was in my teens - left off to do a
whole lot of other interesting things for about 45 years - but kept
all my old tools and stuff - occasionally making gifts or abusing
the tools to make custom hardware for furniture etc. I started
messing about with jewelry again just a few years ago and I am
enjoying it. Point of this brief history is that I have the remains
of some Handy Flux which I believe go back to about 1962 or so and,
while I have other fluxes, I still use the Handy flux once in a
while, mostly because it works OK and because I have a certain
sentimental attachment to it. I add water to soften the hardened
mess, scrape or chip out a bit, mash it up on a little china monkey
dish that I got at a garage sale in about 1952, and I get a great
kick out of the ritual.

As for age-hardening copper, another thread in this forum, I don’t
know about copper, but it seems to be happening to my head.

Marty in Victoria where the rains have come!