Originally Posted by
ps_bond
My immediate reaction is that I'd suggest doing a fair amount of soldering practice before attempting it, especially on something with sentimental value.
A secondary thought is that the inlay wasn't originally soldered to the band (as you've observed), although it might be more resilient if it were.
Personally, I'd laser it back together - that way I could rejoin just the inlay and clean it up.
As for the technique, I wouldn't use borax & alcohol, but a borax cone with water. Grind it to a thin cream consistency in a borax dish.
If I were soldering it, I'd probably use binding wire to hold the inlay in place - if the inlay has bent at all then this would need to be addressed first.
I'd prefer to use hard solder, but I'd warm the piece to see if I could oxidise any existing joints which would give me fair warning and might suggest the use of a lower temp solder.
Pick placement and pallion use are both valid techniques; I use the latter more than the former (but use both as the mood takes me).
Soldering gold is slightly different to soldering silver - the heat conduction is much lower, so I tend not to worry about getting the opposite side completely up to heat first. I'd heat either side of the joint; you need to allow the temperature of the metal to melt the solder, not direct flame heat.
Colour matching of solders can be fun, BTW.
I'd really strongly suggest learning to solder silver well before attempting this...
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