Pitting problems

[nicks creative stuff]

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Hi all,
hope you’re feeling festive if that’s your thing… I’ve fused this 1.3mm sterling silver wire with borax for a simple look cuff…. However after cleaning back I found fine porosity or pitting…. so a couple of questions to you experienced sort…. not sure what went wrong any ideas?… and can I somehow flood the ends of this bracelet with solder to fill some of the holes, giving me an opportunity to clean back for a better look.. thanks for any help…Nick

[Dennis]

Hi Nick,

You could try re-melting it, using plenty of borax.
You could file off the more obvious pits and spread molten solder over the end with a soldering pick.
Or you could file the end smaller, and fix on a purpose made cover.

The big enemy at this stage will be the appearance of fire scale, due to repeated heating. Dennis.

[china]

What went wrong my guess is you simply crossed the the line when heating, and too much will cause pitting there is a very fine line when fusing and it is easy to cross it.

[nicks creative stuff]

Thanks Dennis and China,
It sounds like overheating was the cause, i’ll have to be more careful next time. It was supposed to be a quick Xmas present for somebody, so I’ll try the solder and pick trick first.
Thought about remelting it but knowing my luck I could make it worse. Cap ends would look nice if I was more practised.

Would one grade of solder be better than the others for this job or are all of there viscosity’s the same when molten?

Thanks for your help … Nick

[Dennis]

Many of us avoid medium, as it runs reluctantly.
Hard is OK but needs more heat.
Easy is good, but has a slight yellow cast.
Rocks are OK, and hard places no better. Dennis.

[nicks creative stuff]

Ok thanks for that Dennis, i’ll give the easy option a ago…. cheers…. Nick