soldering small bezels

[Trish]

I am having trouble soldering the join on a bezel of 7 x 5 mm either the join springs apart , the bezel melts at the join or the solder only fill half the seam . I have a little pile of scrapped bezels at risk of getting higher if I don't find a solution.

[MuranoSilver]

Can you take picture of how you're setting it up?
Are you soldering the bezel together or the bezel to the
back plate?
Nic x

[Trish]

soldering the join on the bezel ring before attaching to the back plate . Have done quite a few bigger bezels without a problem, but i'm stuck with this one.

[daisychain]

Hi Trish,
without seeing what you are doing I'm not certain of what's going wrong, but it may be that the heat is building up too quickly and melting the silver before the solder can flow. I assume that you are using hard solder so that you can use medium and easy later?
With a bezel that small I direct the heat from my flame on the fire brick, circling around the outside of the bezel without actually touching it. The heat will be transferred into the bezel. This dries off the flux too without doing that so rapidly that the solder "pings" off! Although in this heat I'm finding that the flux dries pretty quickly without the flame!
Only once the bezel has started to heat up well indirectly do I allow the flame to touch the bezel. I pass the flame back and forth across the join, never directly focusing on the solder itself. If the solder doesn't melt and flow almost immediately I go back to circling the bezel again.
One last thing - I prefer to place my solder pallion on the inside of the bezel so that when I see the line of solder on the outside I know that it has been drawn all the way thorugh the join.
I hope that that helps - as I said, it's easier to give advice when you can actually see what's going on!
Good luck - and do something else to have a break when the soldering mucks you about for too long and go back to it later! It happens to everyone at some point!
Jo

[Trish]

I think you could be right about the heat being too high before the solder melts , and yes I am using hard solder . I think heating the firebrick sounds like a clever idea. You are also right about taking a break and trying something else. I feel all enthusiastic again now with a new trick to try , thanks so much. do you use liquid flux or borax cone for such small items ?

[Emerald]

I think you could be right about the heat being too high before the solder melts , and yes I am using hard solder . I think heating the firebrick sounds like a clever idea. You are also right about taking a break and trying something else. I feel all enthusiastic again now with a new trick to try , thanks so much. do you use liquid flux or borax cone for such small items ?

this is the way i have been doing it this week as my small torch has melted and i am using one with a flame far to big for the job! Place the solder on the base plate and heat till it flows then place the plate anyway

[daisychain]

I think you could be right about the heat being too high before the solder melts , and yes I am using hard solder . I think heating the firebrick sounds like a clever idea. You are also right about taking a break and trying something else. I feel all enthusiastic again now with a new trick to try , thanks so much. do you use liquid flux or borax cone for such small items ?

I use whichever comes to hand first! I use auflux most at home, borax most at college