Quote Originally Posted by Hans Meevis View Post
My eternal bug bear--solder lines. Mostly caused by the zinc in the soldering alloy.
One of three methods that I use sometimes help.
A super neat and thin joint, so that the line is very thin if it shows.
Use a 'L' shaped polished burr to bash the solder joint down before finishing, thus work hardening it.
Hard metal polishes better and the circular motion 'smears' silver over the joint.
Use some silver hard and add a small amount of fine silver to it.
This effectively makes it a super hard solder, more difficult to solder but with less reactive metal like zinc in it.
And also, if it is possible, plan your piece so that critical solder joints are not easily visible, so they can look ugly all on their lonesome.

Hi Hans,
Although I sell some of my jewelry pieces, I mostly make jewelry as a hobby more than anything else and I'm still honing my soldering skills. They're actually somewhat decent but sometimes I can see a barely visible join on the rings that I make so I was looking for answers when I saw your post. I must say... I don't know why I never thought to add fine silver to my solder but that's a great idea! 👍 I say "I don't know why..." because recently whilst cutting an 8mm wide band ring shank, I accidentally cut about 2mm into the opposite side of the join (the top of the ring) and yes, I'm still working on my sawing skills. I was so disheartened by my goof but then I had the brilliant idea all on my own to fill it in with fine silver. I hammered some 20ga fine silver wire thin enough to fit in the crack, fluxed it, torched it, melted the silver, cleaned it up, and to my surprise it was absolutely, perfectly repaired! I was so proud of myself but again, with that said, I can't believe that I never before thought about using the fine silver and solder on the join. I know this is a really old post but I wanted to say THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU SO MUCH for posting this info publicly! The next time I make a ring I will definitely add a tad bit of fine silver to my solder. I actually think part of my problem is being afraid of using too much solder because I don't want to have to deal with a terribly messy clean-up. LOL!

Many Thanks,
Tammy O.