men's gold wedding band

[kraftrourke]

I've been asked by a friend to help him make his own wedding band. I've never soldered gold, only gold-filled. Today he came over and I gave him a quick tutorial and talked him through making two different silver rings for practice and to figure out sizing and style. 6GA half-round (4x2mm) was ever so slightly too thick(high) and could have been wider. Low dome (4.32x1mm) was much more comfortable but didn't feel as "weighty nice" as the other.

I found a "sizing stock" 14k half-round wire on Riogrande that is 5x1.5mm. That seems like it would work perfectly.

Is it inappropriate to use sizing stock for this? I don't even know what it is for, to enlarge rings?

Also, having never soldered 14k, I'm wondering how different from silver it will be to work with. I plan on doing some research but I will ask here as well, is there anything I should watch out for? Me supervising him is truly the blind leading the blind...

Thanks in advance!

-Adam

[Dennis]

I can't say for certain about 14ct, but my advice would be to use medium solder and treat the job like silver and you won't go far wrong.

You can try the solder on scrap silver first.

My main reservation is with the profile. True D shaped is half as high as it is wide, so yours will be a bit thin at the edges. You can counter this once soldered and rounded, by rubbing the sides on flat sandpaper, to reduce each side by half a mm. this will give a firmer edge and end up 0.4mm in width.

Or you could use oval wire instead, which is quite common for wedding bands. Good luck, Dennis.

[Dennis]

One other thing occurred to me this morning:
This will be quite a heavy ring, so if you only have a re-fillable mini-torch, you might struggle to get the metal up to soldering temperature and spoil it in the attempt to get the solder to flow.
You will need a bigger torch or at the very least two small ones, one in each hand to do it comfortably. Dennis.

[kraftrourke]

Thanks for your insight Dennis!

I have a large air acetylene torch. In fact, I suspect the tip is too big and after some research and reading the book "Soldering Demystified" I'm wanting to get a mixed fuel set-up like a Smith Little Torch or similar.

What exactly will happen to the gold if it does get spoiled?

[Dennis]

Well strangely, people struggling with too small a torch who can't get the solder to flow, still manage to melt metal, where they have lingered too long with their fierce pointy flame.

Sometimes this shows as reticulation, or pitting and sometimes the metal around the joint deforms, so leaving them short of usable stock for a second try.

How do I know? Answer: when I started I did all of that. Dennis.