Why did it melt?

"Jack Schmidling" wrote in message
...

Having learned to solder at age ten and in the electronics business for
all
of my working life, I thought I knew all there was to know about
soldering.

I did physics at school, so I'm reasonably competant at iron soldering, but
torch soldering is a whole new thing! Fun though.

I really don't understand what it is you are trying to do but if I can
solder jump rings, you should be able to solder your wire.

I'm going to try some chunky jump rings later, the "other half" wants a big
chain maille style bracelet but the links are so big they're going to have
to be soldered to get rid of the gap.

And of course.... wade through the lectures and Amazon promos and keep
slugging till you get an answer.

Amazon Promo's? Eh?

Charlie.


js


--
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Another thought: Be sure the melting point of the solder is less than the
melting point of the silver. You didn't say what the silver content was in
your wire, whether sterling, fine, mexican silver, coin, silver toned, or
what. The alloy content of the wire may make a lower melting point than
your solder.



"Charlie" wrote in message
...
I was trying to solder some silver (1mm I think) wire to itself in a
simple
filigree type thing using hard solder. I followed all the instructions in
my book yet the wire melted before the solder. I'm using a small butane
hand torch, would that make a difference? If so, I'm going to have to
give
up my new hobby!

Charlie.




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I did physics at school, so I'm reasonably competant at iron soldering, but
torch soldering is a whole new thing! Fun though.

As you've discovered there's not a lot in common between iron (aka
"soft") and torch (aka "hard" or "silver") soldering. In the long run
that's a good thing because the latter makes many things in metalwork
possible that the former does not.

Of course one of those things is jewellery as you've been attempting.
Many things could be said in reply to your question but in all honesty
one of the best pieces if advice is "try again". Chances are that
what you're trying to do _is_ possible so learning by doing is about
the quickest way to get to the point where you're doing it too.

A few points are worth remembering while you're doing your
trial-and-error thing:

- the silver _must_ be very, Very, VERY clean. We're talking fresh,
raw metal here without grease or any other contaminants.

- the solder must also be clean. Dirty solder is a real bugbear to
the soldering process.

- a good flux is absolutely necessary. The good news here is that a
mix of commonplace Borax and Boric Acid (both are powders) in alcohol
or distilled water is very good place to start. It can get a lot more
complicated than that but a 3:1 mix of these will do a pretty
respectable job.

- heat control is a huge part of the job and you must learn what your
torch is capable of and the only way to do that is to use it ... a
lot!

- sterling and fine silver are big heat sucks. Without getting into a
lot of details and exceptions the bottom line is that all of the metal
in what you're trying to solder must be up to soldering temp for the
solder to flow properly. Yes, that means that in order to solder
together a nice fat bracelet you're going to have to get the whole
thing cooking in order to make that teeny little solder joint. The
challenge of working on larger pieces is not to be underestimated.

- don't heat your stuff too long or you'll burn off the flux which
allows the dreaded oxides to start forming in your soldering area and
.... nothing happens! The solder won't flow and you can cook your work
to oblivion without getting anything that even remotely resembles a
decent solder.

- silver solder is not particularly good at filling gaps so your work
must be "light tight" meaning that if you hold the joint up near a
lamp (before soldering) you can't see light through it. This makes
for stronger joints too.

So if you conclude from the above that successful torch soldering is
basically "clean, tight, fluxed, fast and hot" you're probably on the
right track.

Someone questioned your use of Hard solder but my advice would be to
carry on with it. Using Hard is quite a bit more demanding than
Medium or Easy but it'll teach you much better soldering skills and
technique. In my experience you can gob just about anything together
with Medium or Easy but the results often speak volumes on what you
haven't learned yet. When someone told me to switch to Hard and use
only Hard they did me a big favour because that's when I really
started to learn this torch soldering thing properly. Of course the
others have their place but I now use Hard over Medium and Easy by 100
or more to 1.

One addition to your soldering kit that you might want to consider is
a propane torch, the kind where the torch head screws onto the
disposable propane bottle. They're cheap and will vastly extend your
options in terms of what you can solder. Your little butane torch is
great for small jobs, I have two of them myself, but when you start
getting up to sterling rings or bracelets et al you're not going to be
getting enough oomph out of it to do the job. I used a butane torch
and the disposable propane torch for close to five years and was able
to do a hell of a lot with them. I couldn't cast properly --though
others have said they can with a propane torch-- but I did make
hundreds of pieces nevertheless.

If you want more info on this kind of stuff try the Orchid bulletin
board at http://www.ganoksin.com/orchid/archive/index.htm Soldering,
fluxes, torches, etc have been discussed _many_ times and there's a
lot of great info there on this and virtually every other jewellery
making related topic. The parent site, Ganoksin, has many valuable
resources as well (www.ganoksin.com).

So, "why did it melt"? Your solder wasn't flowing, for any of a
number of reasons, and you kept pouring in the heat. Frankly you
almost certainly should have backed off, cleaned up, and restarted
long before you ended up at the puddle stage.

Cheers,
Trevor F.

As my karate instructor used to say: "Very simple. But maybe not easy."

One of the basic facts of silver soldering is that there is very little
temperature difference between the melting point of the solder and the melting
point of the silver, especially in thin sections, like wire and most especially
with hard solder.

It takes practice and vigilance to bring the metal up to the proper termperature
without melting it. In fact soldering is mostly a matter of practice. You won't
always get it right the first time and you probably won't get it consistently
right for some time after that.

Beyond that, there are three rules to silver soldering:
1) Silver solder will not fill gaps.
2) The solder and the surfaces to be soldered must be perfectly clean.
3) No amount of wishful thinking will change rules #1 and #2.

--RC

Charlie wrote:

It couldn't get much more simple, it was a straight piece of wire to a
curved bit of wire!

Charlie.

"Lamedeer" wrote in message
...
You might try soldering something more simple than filigree until you
develop your skill. The heat source is not the problem.

"Charlie" wrote in message
...
I was trying to solder some silver (1mm I think) wire to itself in a
simple
filigree type thing using hard solder. I followed all the instructions
in
my book yet the wire melted before the solder. I'm using a small butane
hand torch, would that make a difference? If so, I'm going to have to
give
up my new hobby!

Charlie.




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