Soldering palladium

I seem to recall reading that its not a good idea to solder palladium
with an oxy/hydrogen flame, but I can't find the article anywhere. I use
oxy/hydrogen for platinum and would like to use it for Pd too. Does
anyone have actual experience with this please?

--
Regards, Gary Wooding
(To reply by email, change feet to foot in my address)

lemel_man schrieb:
I seem to recall reading that its not a good idea to solder palladium
with an oxy/hydrogen flame, but I can't find the article anywhere. I use
oxy/hydrogen for platinum and would like to use it for Pd too. Does
anyone have actual experience with this please?


I don´t know why? It works!

With best regards,
Heinrich Butschal
--
Jewels and diamaonds with certificates http://www.butschal.com
Estate Jewelry http://www.schmuck-boerse.com
Famous antique Jewelry http://www.royal-magazin.de
Goldsmith signet rings http://www.meister-atelier.de

we've used it without problems although be generous with the flux.
http://www.silverstall.com/soldering...jewellery.html

On Mon, 30 Apr 2007 08:17:02 -0700, in rec.crafts.jewelry lemel_man
wrote:

I seem to recall reading that its not a good idea to solder palladium
with an oxy/hydrogen flame, but I can't find the article anywhere. I use
oxy/hydrogen for platinum and would like to use it for Pd too. Does
anyone have actual experience with this please?

Molten palladium absorbs hydrogen, so oxy/hydrogen can give you brittle or
porous metal if you use it to actually melt palladium, as in casting. But for
soldering, it shouldn't be a problem. Use flux in any case, which will protect
against oxidation, and if using palladium based solders like the lower grades of
traditional platinum solders, should protect the solders too from hydrogen
absorbtion. (I use 1000 platinum solder for palladium, and it seems to work
fine).

One other comment, if soldering palladium to gold or silver using gold solders,
be aware that the joints can sometimes be fairly brittle since the lower melting
gold or silver solders don't penetrate the palladium much, and you especially
have to be careful to have the palladium clean of oxides and well fluxed. I've
seen palladium heads soldered to gold rings crack right off very easily, and on
examination, it appeared the jeweler had allowed the palladium to at least
slightly oxidize during soldering. The solder appeared to flow anyway, but
didn't bond much. I'm not sure of that, but that's what it looked like had
happened at any rate. I generally use the more active paste fluxes, like Handy
flux (contains fluorides) when soldering palladium to gold or silver, to be sure
it remains oxide free, and use Batterns or the like (withstands higher temps)
when soldering palladium with pt1000 solders. Seems to work.

Peter

Peter W.. Rowe, wrote:
... snip
Use flux in any case, which will protect
against oxidation, and if using palladium based solders like the lower grades of
traditional platinum solders, should protect the solders too from hydrogen
absorbtion. (I use 1000 platinum solder for palladium, and it seems to work
fine).


Interesting.
This is my first attempt at using Pd and all the tutorials on Ganoksin
state "don't use flux", so thanks for your warning.
So far I've successfully tack-welded bits together with my PUK-2 (works
fine) but have been nervous of actually soldering the stuff. I feel a
little more confident now.

--
Regards, Gary Wooding
(To reply by email, change feet to foot in my address)

On Sun, 06 May 2007 09:04:12 -0700, in rec.crafts.jewelry lemel_man
wrote:

Peter W.. Rowe, wrote:
... snip
Use flux in any case, which will protect
against oxidation, and if using palladium based solders like the lower grades of
traditional platinum solders, should protect the solders too from hydrogen
absorbtion. (I use 1000 platinum solder for palladium, and it seems to work
fine).


Interesting.
This is my first attempt at using Pd and all the tutorials on Ganoksin
state "don't use flux", so thanks for your warning.
So far I've successfully tack-welded bits together with my PUK-2 (works
fine) but have been nervous of actually soldering the stuff. I feel a
little more confident now.

Well, I might be wrong on that too. I'm mostly a platinum and gold worker. My
experience with soldering palladium is mostly with soldering it to gold or
silver, as in using palladium settings with gold jewelry. In those cases, flux
is critical, because if the palladium oxidizes, the solder can still seem to
flow, but the joint will not be good. Soldering palladium to itself, using the
lower temperature grades of traditional platinum solder (which are made of
palladium and silver, or pd and gold, usually, not platinum itself), puts the
process in a higher temperature range, and is then using a solder more closely
matched to the palladium When soldering platinum itself, flux is not a great
idea, because many of them contain one or another silicate containing chemical,
and at high temperatures, in a reducing atmosphere, sometimes silicates get
reduced to silicon metal, which then can contaminate the platinum. This is the
big problem with carbon and platinum too, as I understand it, because at high
temps, carbon is an exceptionally good reducing agent, and can cause even things
like the fused quartz in a platinum soldering block to start to reduce like
that, thus contaminating the platinum.

Now, I don't know if the lower temp range we're talking about here gives the
fluxes and equal risk as with higher temp soldering or welding of platinum.
Frankly, though I doubt it. And i DO know that if the palladium oxidizes, then
a good joint will be harder to get, and the combination of a slightly reducing
flame and flux helps to avoid that. But don't get too reducing a flame, because
then you run the risk of hydrogen absorbtion by the solder, giving you pits and
all...

That's how I see it, at any rate. But as i said, I've only soldered palladium
to itself a few times. Most of the work I've done with it involves soldering it
to gold or silver. So I might be wrong for the hgiher temp work. If the
Ganoksin articles contradict me, I'd suggest going with them instead. Just be
sure they are specifically mentioning palladium, rather than being instructions
for working in platinum.

Peter