Novice at Soldering Silver Jewellery

[samanthanerja]

Hi, Can anybody reccommend to me which solder & flux I should use to solder jumprings for silver jewellery?
Many thanks

[Kwant]

For this job I would use paste, which is solder and flux combined in a syringe, which can be applied with accuracy and in tiny amounts. It comes in easy, medium and hard, it is not cheap as you can see from this link:

http://www.cooksongold.com/Solders/E...prcode-PAT-020

One alternative would be a borax cone and solder strip, which you would have to cut into pallions before use. There is also wire, but iHave no experience of that.

[samanthanerja]

Thanks KWANT...I have tried this method, but didnt get on with it at all.....do these pastes have a shelf life? If not....its obviously me...and I need a lot more practice!!!

[teatowell]

I too am very much a novice but have always used strip solder (cut very small) and flux. I have tried using filings from solder strip with flux before but had very little patience so no luck (unsurprisingly!)

[Kwant]

Samantha, the only problem with leaving the paste for a long time is that it dries out and becomes nigh on impossible to squeeze from the syringe. I have also noticed that before that stage if it is not used for a few days the first squeezings can be too full of whatever liquid they put into to it to make it soft, so although it looks like you have some solder on the joint you in fact have some grubby liquid, which just turns black and crusty but does not solder, this is particularly so with the hard, just be sure to squeeze out a bit each time you start fresh discard the first squish then carry on.

[Di Sandland]

Samantha it took me an age to be able to use paste solder - I thought there must be something wrong with me because everybody else raved about it, at least for jump ring type stuff. In the early days I used to end up with just dry greyish powder; plus my first tube of paste was huge and I think it had dried up at the suppliers long before it came into my hands!

I can now use paste with alacrity, so it's worth persevering because, for jump rings, it is so quick and easy. I would say that I still flux when I use solder paste - only because it's like a reflex action but I have to tell you just in case it makes a difference (it shouldn't!).

When you buy your solder paste just buy the small tubes - they are far much easier to manipulate than the large ones, I can't depress the plunger on those at all. I get my solder paste from Rashbel http://www.rashbel.com/Products.asp?cat_id=321 because that was the only place where I could find the small syringes back along.

Hope that helps