Soldering Cufflinks

[Niamh]

Hi all!
Iv made 2 9ct rose gold spitfires which i intend on turning into cufflinks for my father as a wedding gift (hes giving me away in 8 weeks). I previously tried to solder a gold chain cufflink back onto the spitfire and ended up melting the chain and a tiny bit of the wing! :( Im completely new to soldering and so far have only successfully soldered links together.
I have 2 9ct gold cufflink findings (the T bar ones this time) i want to solder on to my planes, but i am really worried incase i melt these bars, they are not cheap! Please can i have some advice on how to do this? thank you

[enigma]

My best advice would be to practise on copper and silver before attempting to solder gold items.
Soldering is a skill that requires practise, the more practise the more likely it will go right.
The reason you melted the chain is because you were trying to solder a small item ( chain) to a larger item so you needed to be sure to heat the larger item first and concentrate more heat on it - both items have to be roughly the same temperature but obviously a chain will reach that quicker than a model plane.
Did you buy the T bars with the spring mechanism?
because if so you need to really have your soldering spot on to avoid overheating that.

[Niamh]

My best advice would be to practise on copper and silver before attempting to solder gold items.
Soldering is a skill that requires practise, the more practise the more likely it will go right.
The reason you melted the chain is because you were trying to solder a small item ( chain) to a larger item so you needed to be sure to heat the larger item first and concentrate more heat on it - both items have to be roughly the same temperature but obviously a chain will reach that quicker than a model plane.
Did you buy the T bars with the spring mechanism?
because if so you need to really have your soldering spot on to avoid overheating that.

Thank you Enigma, Im not sure if they have a spring, I bought a old second hand pair of cufflinks and sawed off the blank so it left me with the T bar that opens out into a T from a straight stick if that makes sense? I agree. I will practice on silver first to avoid possibly melting them and ruining it! x