Soldering

[The Bijou Dragon]

After having an absolute nightmare of my own today with both hard and easy solder my advice is to use Medium as it seems to work every time for me but neither the easy or the hard would even melt for me the silver would melt but the solder would still be in one piece

I also find the best method is to put the solder down then put the piece you're soldering on top, add a drop of flux and heat all around until it just 'goes'.

[AlexandraBuckle]

I am no expert when it comes to soldering by any means, but i soldered some bits together at uni with some success

I made sure the joint was very flush - it was almost joined together with the flux (I think of it like when a glass sticks to a coaster)

I didn't cut up bits of solder but manually touched the join with the stick of solder when the metal looked hot enough and it kind of melted and ran into the join.

Dunno if that helps for you, but it worked for me.

[barclaybear]

Wow - this is GREAT. Thank you to everyone for all your assistance - this is really going to help.

I think the gap may indeed be too big as the wire was too thick to bend so it was really flush (my novice/experimental fault ... won't be trying THAT again!!) so I appreciate that it might not have joined the pieces, but I assumed that whatever the gap, it would melt when it got to a specific temperature. Even if it didn't close up the join I thought it might at least melt the solder onto one of the ends and help close the gap a bit, but it just wouldn't melt at all even after 10 mins of trying to get the piece hot enough. <sigh>

Yes - it's easy solder... still has the little label on the other end as it arrived from Cooksons. They sent med & hard as well (all came in the solder kit) but I haven't had the nerve to try either of those yet ....

It is only a weeny little blow torch and the wire is very thick. I think it would take a very long time to be able to get the whole thing as hot as it sounds like it needs to be. I'll have a go at the charcoal thing though. So far I've been less than impressed with my charcoal block from cooksons since it arrived as the first time I used it it shattered into 3 pieces, but I guess that just makes it easier for me to make this little charcoal hut thing you mentioned Nic.

Haven't tried that upside down thing but am more than happy to give it a go.

Alexandra - was the silver solder you touched your hot work with a little flat strip - about 3mm wide? It sounds more like the funny round wire like stuff you get for use with a soldering iron for making circuit boards. Ah .. if only there was something that user friendly in silver work .... <more sighing>

I think what I'm going to do is chop the ends off, clean the ends up and do some more work on trying to get it so that the two ends are as flush as I can get them and then try again with the solder, with charcoal all around to help me get it as hot as it seems to need to be. Will let you know how it goes.

Thank you again for all your help ... it's great to know I'm not alone.


PS I have more questions, but they're on a different area so will start another thread for those.

[MuranoSilver]

Glad it helped - When you get your next charcoal block wrap the edges in binding wire to keep it all together
Nic x

[Binraker]

I'm no expert but here two tricks I use which are (or were) used in other manufacturing fields like boiler making and tin-plate working.

1. Direct your blowtorch along the work. Think where the wash from the flame is going. That gas is still hot and you can use it to heat up the bits of metal that will be sapping heat from where you are working.

2. Stand your metal off surfaces. I spent ages once trying to solder a mount to a luchenbooth, it was sitting on a soldering block and that was sapping heat away. Now whenever I am soldering large pieces I make sure that they are not fully in contact with the block, air is a great insulator. To do this I tend to use pennies as little feet for the object and have as little contact between then and the piece as possible as they act as heat sinks themselves. Or use a wire wig or suspend the work over a soldering block between two other soldering blocks.

hope that helps.

[mizgeorge]

Now I've just had to go and look up luchenbooth!

I never knew that

[Di Sandland]

Now I've just had to go and look up luchenbooth!

I never knew that

Me too - it'll come in handy for Scrabble!

[ps_bond]

2. Stand your metal off surfaces. I spent ages once trying to solder a mount to a luchenbooth, it was sitting on a soldering block and that was sapping heat away. Now whenever I am soldering large pieces I make sure that they are not fully in contact with the block, air is a great insulator. To do this I tend to use pennies as little feet for the object and have as little contact between then and the piece as possible as they act as heat sinks themselves. Or use a wire wig or suspend the work over a soldering block between two other soldering blocks.

I use little V shapes of titanium for this sort of thing - it's a godsend for some work. Little thermal mass, not wetted by solder and you can bounce the flame underneath the object you're soldering.

[caroleallen]

It certainly sounds to me that you have two problems. As you say, chopping off the ends should help but it would be best to use a saw for this so you get nice flat ends. Your torch is also not man enough for the job. If you don't want to get a big torch, you could always use two little torches which what I often do. Good luck with it.

[CyberPaddy66]

I found that when doing a repair job on a old dragon ring the solder didn't want to melt or flow at all as the ring was sapping the heat away for too quickly for it to even heat the solder up. running the torch flame around and around the ring made the whole piece glow red and just like that the solder melted and flowed into the joint, sometimes you just need to think outside the box your working in