Solder paste

[Melanie De Castro Pugh]

Oooh, I've just used soldering paste instead of pallions for the first time. Doesn't it make life easier?!

I only have hard at the moment (I have all four grades of the sheet stuff), as I'm on a budget and am slowly building up my workshop kit, but wondered if there are applications where using solid pallions are better than paste? How do you decide which to use? I always start with hard, and work my way down the grades, but didn't know whether paste or sheet was particularly suited to specific applications.

Any thoughts?

Mel

[Dennis]

Solder paste is beloved of jewellers who solder lots of jump rings, wires and small items. Beginners go for it because it seems like a quick fix and they don’t need to get out the flux. It can be dispensed straight from the syringe, or with a tiny spatula, or a moistened brush. However many experienced users say they get a better result by using additional flux.
The down side is:
1. It can get too dry to dispense long before you have finished the tube. Wetting the nozzle under the tap before recapping at the end of a session delays this.
2. If it gets heated by a direct flame before the surrounding metal reaches soldering temperature it will burn to cinders and no longer function. This is particularly important in places where you can’t see whether the solder has flowed or not, because the parts will appear to be joined until they fall apart later.
3. For larger items it is difficult to know just how much paste is needed, but no doubt you could learn this. Let’s say most jewellers eventually give paste a miss, unless they fall into the group mentioned at the beginning. Dennis.

[mizgeorge]

I'm going to disagree with you now Dennis - rare though that is.

I think the main reason traditional jewellers use paillons rather than paste is to do with "that's how we've always done it" and the perception that paste is expensive. It's every bit as difficult to use, mainly because of the issue you raise in your second point, but has a definite role to play in the workshop.

I think there will be a new generation of jewellers who will reach first for paste, and the borax cone will eventually be consigned to it's rightful place in a museum. There are times when new innovations actually are better than traditional ones, and I think this is one of them.

Personally, I use paste or wire as first choices, and resort to snipping stupidly small panels only when I have to use a grade that I'm too mean to replace in another form! I do make a lot of very small things admittedly, but have no problems with using paste for larger pieces as well.

As for the drying out issue - if you only buy small tubes, use a needle tip dispenser and keep it cool in particularly warm weather, then it will easily last. #

Melanie, as with all solders, I only ever really use hard and easy. Medium is IMO a tool of the devil and I don't think I've touched mine in the last couple of years! I find it easier to plan a piece in the form of stages that will allow me to avoid it completely.

[Dennis]

Well, this is what forums are for. I do agree with you about borax cones George, and their cruddy dishes. I have a squeezy dropper bottle of Auflux instead. As for medium solder, I cant remember where I left it. Regards, Dennis.

[Melanie De Castro Pugh]

Thanks chaps, I love a good bit of debate! I do quite enjoy grinding my borax cone on it's manky dish, it makes me feel like a proper jeweller ;-) And I agree that medium solder is devil's spawn... Foul stuff. Paste had made soldering chain possible for the first time, so I'll love it for that!

I shall keep both and just use whatever I fancy, then :-)

[Joe]

Dennis! After all we have said!

To enlighten, we have traded photos of our flux arrangements and my ceramic dish and cone were very old-fashioned... but I suspect I have the upper-hand with my AuFlux in a pumped solvent bottle! Albeit I must buy a mixing dish for the Easy Flux.

I would not be without paste for sticking gold, er, bits to silver. But I just wouldn't touch it for silver-to-silver connections.

MizGeorge is right; it isn't about cost or drying up (my syringes are 3 years old and still running) but, for me, it is about reliability.

For whatever reason (and perhaps Dennis has the key) sometimes the paste refuses to flow. Hard paillons always flow in borax flux.

Like MizGeorge I think that medium solder is some sort of cruel joke. Dennis has challenged me recently to ease-up on easy solder. But hard solder works.

Almost everything I do uses hard solder. 4 layers of parts in... still hard solder, relying on the higher temperature re-melting properties ( when using hard solder, it melts at a higher temperature second time around). I only swap to easy when I turn the piece over to apply the findings.

A big factor is the ease of creating tiny paillons for soldering from the hard-solder strip (or panels). Here (again, much thanks to Dennis) comes the fabulously simple solder cutting pliers, available from Cookies. They work on wire and panels and strip and are close to being my most used tool (crossing-file still holding on to that spot).

[Myosotis]

Albeit I must buy a mixing dish for the Easy Flux.

Joe you don't have to mix EasyFlo up, you can use it dry if you pick solder (which I think you do as I'm sure you've posted about having a titanium pick) and its a technique you can use on most normal soldering jobs. I've never had to clean or degrease my solder or metal surface first this way either (I also never seem to have a problem with medium solder this way). It's kind of hard to describe the technique without it sounding complicated but it's really quick. If anyone is interested I can give it a shot though

[Myosotis]

I think the main reason traditional jewellers use paillons rather than paste is to do with "that's how we've always done it" and the perception that paste is expensive. It's every bit as difficult to use, mainly because of the issue you raise in your second point, but has a definite role to play in the workshop.

I think there will be a new generation of jewellers who will reach first for paste, and the borax cone will eventually be consigned to it's rightful place in a museum. There are times when new innovations actually are better than traditional ones, and I think this is one of them

Yes and no - I agree about the borax cone as I haven't used one since I left college about 18 years ago and in my first jewellers job after college I was taught the EasyFlo method.

The paste solders were fairly new about then and my boss bought some 9ct easy for us to try but at that time it was phenominally expensive, and it didn't actually make things any quicker so considering how much 9ct and 18ct extra easy, easy, medium and hard solder sheets we used to get through it just wasn't financially viable to replace with paste solders without putting prices up and losing customers to the other goldsmith in town, especially when there was no obvious advantage. I don't think it's necessarily a case of "that's how we've always done it", more a case of no point changing unless there is an obvious financial advantage to do so. When I was at college we had to use the mouthblown torches, the first place I worked at used "Little Torch" style oxy-propane and the second one used a Microweld, and I've heard the person who now owns the first place has bought a laserwelder so I think change does happen

[Dennis]

I have often read with interest, descriptions of pic and wire soldering, but as my teachers have mostly been college trained, they have not been great on techniques which come as mothers’ milk to bench trained jewellers.
When soldering my pieces are often precariously balanced and a prod would cause them to collapse like a house of cards. Also:

1. Wire solder gets hot, so presumably has to be held with pliers? Another skill to learn.
2. With both wire and pic soldering, I would feel disadvantaged by having both hands engaged and no prehensile tail to wield tweezers for safety, or for large pieces, a second torch.
3. Lastly I have come to relish soldering many joints at once(http://www.cooksongold.com/forum/sho...-one-offs.html ), which I doubt could be done with the above methods.

What do you say? Dennis.

[medusa]

I have a really hard time with solder paste. I have a hard time soldering (*cough* brazing for joe *cough*) anyway, but paste solder is really hard for me. I have to pick a lump out with a pin and often it doesn't seem to work. it has stayed nice and squishy though, possibly because I keep it submerged in a jar of water with my pmc.