Super glue and soldering

Andreas,

But super glue CAN be a filler glue if you use the gel form.

John
Indiana

Hi, I just found an interesting article on the developement of
cynoacrylate. Good reading-

James F. Conley

But super glue CAN be a filler glue if you use the gel form. 

True but it takes a lot longer to set up.

I tried this technique tonight on a rather complicated set-up in
14kw. I used the cheap super glue. I actually really worked quite
well and with my home-made from a drier hose and a computer fan
ventilation system, I didn’t smell a thing.

Filigree bits should be held in place by tension so that when
lifted in the air BEFORE soldering, no parts will fall out! If any
parts need to be glued in place, it means the item will not have
the structural integrity required to last over time which is
characteristic of quality filigree..... 

A good filigree solder join is traditionally obtained by tension,
but it is not the exclusive method to solder or fuse filigree. Proper
use of flux, solder, heat control & good metal contact determine the
quality of the join, not just the metal tension prior to soldering.

Jamie

I do like the idea of tacking things together with it and then
using binding wire or plaster or some such to jig for the final
soldering 

I think most of the posts about how to use super glue miss the
point, except maybe this one. Because it burns away cleanly, you can
use it to hold parts together long enough to set them up in sand,
pumice, bits of brick, plaster, or whatever. It saves a lot of
frustration over trying to get supports arranged while keeping parts
from slipping out of alignment. It can be used to attach cloissone’
wires in place long enough to get everything arranged as you want it,
and it holds better than KlearFire.

Noel

I wrote:

Filigree bits should be held in place by tension so that when
lifted in the air BEFORE soldering, no parts will fall out! If any
parts need to be glued in place, it means the item will not have
the structural integrity required to last over time which is
characteristic of quality filigree..... 

Jamie wrote:

A good filigree solder join is traditionally obtained by tension,
but it is not the exclusive method to solder or fuse filigree.
Proper use of flux, solder, heat control & good metal contact
determine the quality of the join, not just the metal tension prior
to soldering. 

I write:

I FULLY agree with Jamie that the quality of the join is NEVER
determined by tension alone!

In ethnic filigree from pretty much all countries from around the
world, the filling was tightly packed so that all the many tiny
pieces held each other in place, so that the piece could be lifted
before soldering without any pieces falling out. This allowed one to
pack the filling on a solid surface, press the bits down to produce a
flat bottom surface, turn the piece over to apply the
powdered-solder/powdered-borax mixture to the back, and then to
transfer to a mesh for soldering either over a coal fire and hand
bellows, an air torch with foot bellows, or with a mouthblown torch.
What gave the piece great structural integrity was not only the many
pieces pressing against each other, but primarily the fact that the
technique created VERY MANY tight-contact solder points! Over time,
people more and more left out the “solid-filling” background to save
time–or simply as an aesthetic choice. Wire parts can of course be
soldered with paillons, with paste, with no tension, glued in place,
with the aid of a jig, etc., etc., etc.,…etc… And nowadays any
piece with soldered wires is often called filigree. Having started
my metal career with Yemenite filigree, and later Russian and Italian
filigree, I naturally tend to distinguish between filigree and other
forms of wire work. I think you will find that all ethnic filigree
(Yemen, Russia, Italy, Mexico, Morocco, Turkistan, Persia, Thai,
Iraq…etc., etc.) have tension held parts, even in pieces where
there is no full-filling. I think it would be hard to find an
exception in UNBACKED ethnic filigree from any country. This is an
invaluable ‘tool’ we can apply to any kind of soldering.

Janet in Jerusalem

How about Hide Glue–obtainable at hardware and leather goods stores
here in Idaho. Rhonda C uses this when working granulation so it
must hold up long enough to get to fusing temperatures with
Argentium.

Chris

How about Hide Glue--obtainable at hardware and leather goods
stores here in Idaho. Rhonda C uses this when working granulation
so it must hold up long enough to get to fusing temperatures with
Argentium. 

Hide glue in granulation is used as a source of carbon to reduce
copper oxide to metallic copper, and not as a glue which can
withstand soldering temperature.

Leonid Surpin

Hide glue does not hold up to soldering temps- it burns off. The
formula I use for granulation- though I’m not entirely happy with it
with Argentium- is a bit of hide glue, a bit of Batten’s flux, and
dilute with water.

The point of this: the hide glue hold the granules in place before
they get heat applied, and burns off pretty cleanly. The flux help
keep the granules in place after the hide glue burns off but before
the fine silver hits fusing temps. The dilution makes sure that
there’s only a wee bit of both- barely enough to work- so nothing
leaves residue that interferes with the fusing.

I haven’t been thrilled with this formula with Argentium, though,
because at Argentium fusing temps it does seem to leave a bit of
residue that interferes with the fusing… sometimes. Sometimes it
works fine. I’m still experimenting to find something that works as
well with Argentium as the above does with fine silver.

Amanda Fisher

Dr Coover’s son was a classmate of mine and super glue was brought to
school where it was used to glue plates to the wall, long chains of
cole bottle and many many other gag uses in high school.

Ben A Harris
MCAP Inc