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I have tried working for the first time with Argentium Silver, I was so pleased when I saw that Cooksons had starting stocking it. My problem is soldering it. It just does not seem to behave the same as Sterling silver. All my joins have been either very open and impossible to polish out or have not taken at all. Has anyone got any clues as to how I can overcome this.:confused:
After reading all the advice I ended up not bothering to even try soldering it yet - not least because it fuses like a dream!
I know Carole did a course recently with Cynthia Eid that covered some Argentium work, so I'm sure she'll be along soon with some proper advice :)
ps. Welcome to the forum!
Are you using "normal" solder or the specific Argentium solders?
Thermal conductivity is much poorer with Argentium (than sterling), so you don't need to get the whole piece heated as much as you would otherwise; also, you only need to flux the area that you're soldering.
Borax works for flux, I haven't tried Auflux on it yet (sorry Ben!).
I had been using normal solder with borax as a flux. I was not aware that there are special solders available for Argentium silver
The Argentium ones have the same tarnish-resistance as the rest of the metal - but the flipside is that hard flows about as well as a normal easy solder would. It's not all that great to use IME, but again you've got to decide if it benefits the piece.
I can't really give much advice as I'm still waiting for my order of Argentium that I ordered from Cooksons about 3 weeks ago to arrive. Cynthia Eid recommended using Argentium paste solder but you have to get it from Rio Grande. I have the paste but not the silver - typical that you can get stuff from America easier than you can from this country.
Thank you Carole for the info about the Argentium solder paste. I have ordered some this evening, unfortunately it cost me an additional $73.00 for a rotary tumbler!! Bargain!