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Thread: Soldering Woes

  1. #1
    Join Date
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    Default Soldering Woes

    Hello. I'm a bit of a beginner regarding soldering but gaining confidence!

    I've made a couple of silver cones. They have a solder joint. I want to solder them onto a plain silver ring band which also has a solder joint. I have used hard solder so far. I plan to use medium to attach the two cones together and then easy to attach this 'construction' to the ring band. Will I risk the cones collapsing by applying new heat onto a previous solder joint? Is there anything I can do to protect this joint?

    Thank you.

    Alison

  2. #2
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    Default

    Hi Alison, I think I would stick with hard solder to join the cones. If you then use easy to solder them onto the ring, it should be fine. If you have any worries, you can always use some heat protecting paste on the join.

  3. #3
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    Yes, many of us have found quite independently that medium solder doesn't always flow well, so we have given up on it.

    However you are doing things in the right order. It is always best to join parts of nearly equal size. Joining a very small part to a much larger part will create heating problems. More so if you only have a small torch. Dennis.

  4. #4
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    Thanks for your replies. I've since tried soldering cones to each other and it has worked!

  5. #5
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    Why is medium solder rubbish? I only ever use hard, easy and rarely extra easy if I can help it, but thought it was just me.

  6. #6
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    It is? Easy & extra are the ones I despise for their colour & poor flowing characteristics; I usually try to use hard for everything.

    Soldering mokume is a different issue - you can't heat it that much without the layers melting into each other, so I've just started trying some medium paste solder. Not sure I like it - the joints seem to look pitted and require a lot of polishing back.

  7. #7
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    It is hard solder for me unless I have to use soft (recent project included the latter).

    Hard doesn't lose its colour, it is good at keeping thing put (unlike soft, again... Issues with a recent project was a good reminder of this)

  8. #8
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    Out of interest, does anyone know of a supplier of hard silver solder wire in 0.5mm diameter (or better yet, 0.25)? The stuff I bought from the US to try is 80% silver, so not good enough for anything for hallmarking.

  9. #9
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    Quote Originally Posted by ps_bond View Post
    Out of interest, does anyone know of a supplier of hard silver solder wire in 0.5mm diameter (or better yet, 0.25)? The stuff I bought from the US to try is 80% silver, so not good enough for anything for hallmarking.
    Have you tried http://wires.co.uk/acatalog/si_solder.html. Theirs is .4mm, although they don't say which grade it is...
    Last edited by Wallace; 17-04-2014 at 10:13 AM. Reason: Can you tell I have auto in-correct?

  10. #10
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    As has been said, I also find that medium solder doesn't flow particularly well. Tried silver solder paste to but as per Peter's experience, it left the join pitted no matter how precise and clean I was. I will never ever use paste again as it is bloody awful stuff!

    Nick

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