Help, please: Soldering silver jewelry

JOEYS CARVED ART

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Hello, lately I have been slowly trying my hand at making some jewelry. I bought some fine & sterling silver in both wire and sheet form. I also purchased some silver solder wire(easy). When I tried to solder my silver with it the solder don't melt. I am using a smaller butane torch. I can get the solder glowing red hot and it still doesn't melt or get soft. When I watch tutorials about this on youtube it only takes a second with the flame and the solder joint is complete. I am using a kind of generic flux, could this be the problem. The solder wire is also very stiff and springy, could I have been sent the wrong item. I ordered it from jets tools on the bay, they are generally pretty good to deal with. Will someone please help.
thanks
Joey
 

mdengraver

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You need silver flux not the kind used for lead solder. Also make sure the metal and soldering surfaces are clean and free of grease.
 

JOEYS CARVED ART

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Will that let it melt and do what it is supposed to do? Is HANDY FLUX the right stuff? It seems that is what another jeweler was using for his.
 

J.Hayes

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Joe Jacob

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From the RioGrande catalog: Silver Wire Solder, 20 Ga., Easy, Item #101100 Liquidus temperature: 1,325°F (718°C)
Fine Silver melts at 1,763°F (961.8°C)
You have to get everything uniformly hot. Handy Flux is OK, there are others.
Take some scrap and try to melt a small piece of solder on it. I use an ox-acetylene Little Torch by Smith Equipment for jewelry work. Silver conducts away heat very fast, I like the micro torch for it's small and concentrated flame.
Butane I use for annealing gold wire.
 
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JOEYS CARVED ART

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Thanks for the help. I have been wanting to purchase one of those mini-torch kits. If I am going to get even semi-serious about making jewelry I will need a good hot torch.
 

Marrinan

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The Little Torch, oxy/acetylene gets very hot very fast. You can weld steel with it. It takes a bit of time to learn. I have been using mine for years. I also us a plumbers torch with the smallest tip I could find. It uses a single bottle of oxy/acetylene premixed. works real well and you can often get them from pawn shops. a little less heat to control with them. Fred
 

bildio

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Could the "solder" be the problem, i.e., it's not solder? Joey said that it's stiff & springy.
 

mtlctr

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I've made 100's of pieces of silver jewelry I've used butane torches , propane & mapp gas & oxy/ map. they all work. unless the material is very thick you would need xtra heat and this usually isn't the case in jewelry making any of the above torches work. the flux is important,as are the seams to be soldered that need to be tight. you can use borax mixed w/ rubbing alcohol for flux. Rio Grande offers a good paste all around flux. I've done a bulk of the work with a propane "hardware torch".:hammer:
 

matthew.townsley

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One of the important things to remember is that your are trying to get the surfaces you are soldering to the melting temperature of the solder.
Silver distributes heat very quickly so you need each side of the join you are soldering to be the same temperature.
If the solder is glowing, but the surfaces are cold (or a lot cooler) it will not run.
Unlike lead soldering, hard soldering (ie silver solder, gold solder) actually binds with the solder when the process is complete.
Hope that helps.
 

Beladran

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I have a laser so I kinda cheat sometimes
But we have this big batch of Prips flux(spelling) that we use for silver work an it works way better than the fire scoff I usually use. I don't like working on silver rings personally I guess because we don't really do many of them. But like everyone says you need lotta heat! Specially if your gotta wrap a stone up in a wet rag or something! Dang flame looks like you could cut armored steel with it
 

D Fulwood

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I have trouble silver soldering with the small butane torches with medium, easy, and very easy solders I got from Rio Grande Jewelry.( I use their Gel-Flux which sorta helps hold the parts together till the melting starts.) I had to switch to a propane torch to get enough heat and while it took 2 or 3 minutes, I finally got it hot enough to work. Don't heat the solder. Heat the work piece until it melts the solder when you touch the solder to the work. The wire solder is stiff and springy so you likely have the right solder.
 

Roger B

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As Matthew said, avoid the temptation to concentrate the heat where you have the solder - you need to heat a larger area so that the heat does not vanish too quickly from where you want it. The torch should not be a problem unless you are trying to heat a large piece with a small flame but the flux is important so use one designed for silver soldering.

Roger
 

bronc

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My suggestion would be to look for a jewelry class to enroll in, or find a craftsman and make a deal with them to give you a crash course. High temp soldering is not an easy task to learn, but it's going to be a lot easier if you can see it done first hand. There's an art to getting the heat right and if you have never seen it done correctly it's going to be hard to develop the proper feel. Just my 2 cents.

Stewart
 

Chujybear

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ya.. as they say here. heat the whole thing..
default to a little more heat to the rest of the object than less... concentrate on the joint as the solder starts to flow.. thats for starting out, you'll get the hang of how much/little you can get away with in terms of concentrating onthe joint.. but if you just focus on the solder it wikk ball up, and eat into the metal where it sits.
 
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