gold filled wire

I will try this again and be more specific this time.

I need to solder some approximately 12mm jump rings of 16 gauge gold filled
wire. Can this be done? Do I pickle? Can this go in my sterling silver
pickle? Will the flux I use with sterling silver work? What sort of flame
will work and do I concentrate the flame on the join or heat the whole
piece? I don't have a clue about soldering anything but silver and would
like a few suggestions before I jump right in and ruin a ton of the jump
rings. I do have 14k solder. Thanks........Diana

On , in rec.crafts.jewelry "Diana Jones" wrote:

I will try this again and be more specific this time.

I need to solder some approximately 12mm jump rings of 16 gauge gold filled
wire. Can this be done? Do I pickle? Can this go in my sterling silver
pickle? Will the flux I use with sterling silver work? What sort of flame
will work and do I concentrate the flame on the join or heat the whole
piece? I don't have a clue about soldering anything but silver and would
like a few suggestions before I jump right in and ruin a ton of the jump
rings. I do have 14k solder. Thanks........Diana

It can be done

You DO pickle it, same as sterling, in the same pickle

Use the same flux for soldering, but also be sure to either flux the entire
jump ring, or first dip it into a slurry of boric acid powder in denature
alcohol (you mix this up so it's a thin slurry, about the consistancy of skim
milk. Dip the item, then either just let it dry, or usually, ignite it and it
burns off quickly, leaving a thin boric acid film. Then apply soldering flux
to just the solder seam.

Use a small slightly reducing flame. Try to heat only the area of the joint,
not the whole ring (unlike silver). use an easy flowing or extra easy flowing
grade of solder. You want to try and solder this without heating the ring any
more than needed to just flow the solder completely. Excess heating can damage
the gold filled layer. But it's not all THAT fragile. don't be scared to
solder it. What you want to avoid is oxidizing it so badly that you'd then
have to do serious buffing. The goal is to solder it, pickle it, and be able
to polish with just a bit of rouge, not with lots of tripoli or the like, which
could buff through the gold layer. For the same reason (avoiding excess clean
up), try not to use more solder than needed, so you don't have to remove excess
after soldering.

Hope that helps.

Peter

Peter has given you a lot of useful information on how to get started.
If you can give us some more info well help some more.
You say youve "some " rings to solder, you finish up by saying you dont
want to ruin a ton of them.
So actually how many are you needing to solder? also are they all linked
together to make a chain? When you bought the wire did you know what
the core material is? and what the thickness of the gold was? you need
to know all this to enable you plan your production properly. Details of
the product always helps us here.
If youve say 50 to solder you will have bought? enough wire to do this
number and some extra to allow for mistakes. always make more than you
need if your into what can be described as production work. Not one off
stuff.
If your short of wire or only have to make say 5 to 10, then get some
brass or copper wire, anneal, pickle, make up the rings on your mandrel
as normal, cut off and true up.
Run some trials with these to get the torch settings, flux and solder
amount to save you ruining the real ones.
dummy test pieces are always a good way to hone your technique with any
such job.
As to solder, for fine work like thisI use foil, cut into tiny pieces .
I put these between ther flat ends of the jump ring. their springiness
holds it there. .Only enough solder to go between, no more. then it wont
flow all over the join, only between it. Dont wire feed the solder, you
can always tell whe a jump ring has been wire fed. Theres always too
much solder!!.n Flux all over to prevent fire scale.
Hope this helps.
ted ,.

Thanks Peter and Ted

I have only about 6 to solder at this time, so this pretty much answers all
my questions. I'm not making chain, just linking some fabricated pieces
together, and these can be soldered separately. I do this regularly with
silver, but have never tried to solder gold filled wire before and wasn't
quite sure if it would work without melting off all the gold layer. I will
try it tonight......Diana

"ted.frater" wrote in message
...
Peter has given you a lot of useful information on how to get started.
If you can give us some more info well help some more.
You say youve "some " rings to solder, you finish up by saying you dont
want to ruin a ton of them.
So actually how many are you needing to solder? also are they all linked
together to make a chain? When you bought the wire did you know what
the core material is? and what the thickness of the gold was? you need
to know all this to enable you plan your production properly. Details of
the product always helps us here.
If youve say 50 to solder you will have bought? enough wire to do this
number and some extra to allow for mistakes. always make more than you
need if your into what can be described as production work. Not one off
stuff.
If your short of wire or only have to make say 5 to 10, then get some
brass or copper wire, anneal, pickle, make up the rings on your mandrel
as normal, cut off and true up.
Run some trials with these to get the torch settings, flux and solder
amount to save you ruining the real ones.
dummy test pieces are always a good way to hone your technique with any
such job.
As to solder, for fine work like thisI use foil, cut into tiny pieces .
I put these between ther flat ends of the jump ring. their springiness
holds it there. .Only enough solder to go between, no more. then it wont
flow all over the join, only between it. Dont wire feed the solder, you
can always tell whe a jump ring has been wire fed. Theres always too
much solder!!.n Flux all over to prevent fire scale.
Hope this helps.
ted ,.