Two tool questions...

[Faith]

Hi Sarah,

I'm doing exactly what you say really, soldering the seam in the bezel wall first with hard, clean up etc, then popping a tiny bit of solder inside the bezel to solder to the piece and heating in circles from below. I think the problem is I always use medium for that. Next time I'll try with hard again - I've always been frightened if I did the bezel wall would come unsoldered but I can make em much faster now so I'll try that way.

Thanks Nick too, I didn't know any of that about Argentium, I'll definitely bear that in mind for the future

Finally, for my current lumpy solder problem, based on all the advice, I bought a little inverted cone diamond burr and a slightly larger pink abrasive "foot" like Mark suggested. Testing them both on scrap I found the diamond burr more aggressive and opted to use the pink "foot" on my actual piece. It worked brilliantly, really tidy clean up so thank you all again

Faith

[enigma]

It sounds like its the medium solder not fully melting Faith, I have found it does sometimes do that.
I sometimes put a dab of of tippex on the top of the bezel seam to help ensure it doesn't open- make sure its not near the base though or the solder won't flow properly there.

[Faith]

Ahh okay, that's a good tip, thanks Sarah
PS - I knew there had to be something keeping Tippex in business :p
Faith

[1711]

Faith I had exactly the same problems as you with bezels and as I like to pierce the back a really flush fit is essential.

I was (unreasonably? ) intimidated by hard solder but I have met 3 people who use nothing else because they were taught that way at uni.

I don't make hundreds, but I have never had one come apart while soldering the wall to the base, but I do aim to chase the line of flow to finish at the bezel seam on bigger pieces which you probably won't be doing with a hand torch? (well done by the way I could never get anything to work with one!)

I have only found hard solder in wide ribbons which are a pain if you don't have a rolling mill (I wish!) and I would for preference roll even the smaller strips of medium before cutting Pallions

My thought is if the seam is good and you still have a tag where each Pallion was, you have too much solder... Maybe your Pallions are just too big? Or you have placed too many? If you are getting the whole piece up to temperature slowly the solder should all melt and flow.. If its rising the last few degrees a bit faster enough solder flows for the seam, and you take away the heat... Leaving the remainder as those pesky nuggets.. I would firstly try and get them half the size you usually cut or try placing them much further apart?

One other option you might consider is solder paste. I dont use it much now but I found it really easy to pipe a fine line on the bottom of the bezel wall, drop the base sheet on top and then flip it over to solder.. I'm sure some purists would churn in their grave but if it gets the job done in half the time with no waste... 👍

Sent from my SM-N910F using Tapatalk

[Faith]

Hi 1711 and Brandon,

Sorry I didn't see your replies at the time, I've been offline for a bit, but many thanks for the extra advice. In the end I used a pink abrasive inverted cone shape to clean up the bezels I'd messed up, but I think the root cause was using too much medium solder as you've said .

Thanks again

Faith