After trying more than 10 times without success, I feel like I must turn to someone more experienced to finally find out what I'm doing wrong.
I am trying to solder two pieces together, just regular flat pieces of brass. I am using a hand held torch, silver solder strip cut to tiny pieces and a borax cone and dish for flux. The problem is, that the solder flows nicely but it just won't stick.
I have done a lot of soldering before (I'm studying decorative arts at university), and I never had this problem at my uni workshop. Now that I'm doing it at home it just won't work. I have cleaned the metal very well so that can't be the problem.
The only thing that is different is my borax cone. The one I used at uni was a bit different to mine, it made a nice milky homogenous paste, but mine seems to have some tiny granules in it. It turns milky but I can clearly see the little bumps in there, which makes it difficult to spread it out on the metal. However, with a little extra time I could distribute it properly and it seemed to act like normal flux so I'm not sure if this is the problem.
Please help, I am getting really angry haha. Thanks