Hello! I am new to the forum and would like some help soldering please.

[lyreist]

Hello All! I am new to both the forum and to silver smithing, I started at adult ed. last September.
However, I am having trouble with soldering, I spent the whole of yesterday trying to do it, but with no luck.
My husband bought me the soldering kit from Cooksons, which includes a small torch. I decided to practice on copper, as it is much cheaper than silver, I used silver solder, hard, medium and easy.
My thought is that the torch is just not hot enough, but would really appreciate some help. The solder just goes into a little ball and does not run, it just stays hard, and either stays stuck or falls off and rolls under the table. I used the bottle of silver/gold flux included with the kit.

I look forward to hearing from you regarding this.

Thanks in advance.

[MuranoSilver]

What are you trying to solder & how big is it? Copper heats up slower than silver so you might need a gutsier torch right away
The easiest way to see if it's technique rather than torch is to solder some jump rings together, most small torches will handle that.
(+ one or two silver rings wont cost a fortune and you can use them later)

1) Make sure there's no gap in the jump ring (twist it until it's flush)
2) Clean the easy solder strip with a bit of sandpaper
3) Cut a small pallion of solder
4) Flux the join and then using the flux brush put a pallion of easy solder at the join.
5) The solder needs to be crossing the join to be sucked into the gap by capilliary action.
6) Heat the whole ring then move the flame to the join
7) If you're doing it right the solder should then flow into the join on the jump ring

Nic x

[lyreist]

Thank you very much! Really appreciate your reply!

[Di Sandland]

Lyreist, I never managed with the Cookies torch either I'm afraid. it wasn't until I got a more powerful torch that I had any resounding success - after that it became easy. The Lakeland cook's torch is a good one and it is very reasonably priced too

[Dennis]

Old fashioned jewellers used a borax cone which they ground up in a dish with water. As it was heated it swelled moving the bits of solder and then settled them into place again if you were lucky. Now they mostly use Auroflux also known as Auflux, which is much easier. But for easy solder you do really need easy flux, which you mix thinly with water. For a shortcut you can just add a pinch to your Auflux when you need it, which is almost as good, but not quite. Medium solder is more iffy, so I have given it up.
You can go the solder-paste route to avoid all this, but for larger areas it is difficult to know whether you have a successful joint, or just burnt out solder and flux which will give way shortly. Happy soldering, Dennis.

[Gemma]

I find that my soldering fails when I haven't cleaned the area properly.
to the forum and hope you have sucess soon

[griffT]

Hi Lyreist,
There is a pretty detailed video on soldering here

Ganoksin - BenchTube - 12 - Soldering Jump Rings- Jewelry Making Videos

which deals with jump rings, but a lot of the stuff applies whatever you are soldering.

If you are experimenting with copper sheet you will need a lot of heat capacity from the torch as the heat loves to crawl away!

Nick.