There's no denying it, I've been outright slacking on the blog. Oops. There are exciting things going on though. With my husbands help I got shelves up in my studio which freed up enough space that I could set up my soldering stuff without having to worry about setting things on fire (don't worry Mom, I have a fire extinguisher very hand, just in case). So now I can solder in my very own home!
My first project were some large jump-rings for a necklace out of non-tarnish silver. I have learned that non-tarnish silver requires some very careful handling when soldering since it's actually silver wire with a copper core and a non-tarnish coating. For starters the non-tarnish coating burns off, so ventilation is a good thing (not having a hood, this means me piling on sweaters and opening a window) Secondly the wire does some funky stuff as it heats. As the temperature goes up the silver disappears, but wait, don't panic yet, because right before the medium solder melts it comes back! At this point you have to be careful because if you keep the heat on too intensely the silver will burn off and this time it won't come back. I'm not sure what exactly what is going on in the wire but it is (obviously) much more complicated than straight silver. I've ruined quite a few jump-rings getting the hang of it but I'm slowly catching on.
I've also got some more designs up in my Etsy store. One pair of earrings sold on there so far. Yey!
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ReplyDeleteThanks for the blog, this is something I was wondering about. can you tell me did you use a torch or soldering iron? for this.
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for reading and asking questions, I love getting a chance to help out.
DeleteFirst you need to know the difference between hard and soft soldering. For jewelry you need to use hard soldering, which is a bit trickier.
Soft soldering is the method used to join electrical wires and pluming pipes. It works by melting the solder over the join to create a "bridge" that holds the two pieces together. This creates a relatively weak joint and, because the solder needs to completely surround the join, it leaves an unsightly lump. This can't be filed away without severely weakening the joint. Soft solder melts at a very low temperature so you can use an iron.
Hard soldering is used for jewelry and actually fuses the two pieces of metal. It works by heating both pieces to a point where the molecules start becoming "excited" and open tiny spaces between them. The solder than flows into these microscopic niches and "welds" the two sides of the join. This method requires much more heat so a torch is necessary. For hard soldering you need silver solder, not the stuff you find at the hardware store. It can be found at most jewelry supply stores or magazines, and is quite a bit pricier, due to the fact that it is indeed partially composed of silver.
Silver solder comes in different "harnesses" easy, medium and hard. This indicates what temperature the solder melts at (easy is lowest, hard is highest). This is important if you are making multiple solders on one piece but for jump rings you only need one.
To solder non-tarnish silver you need to use easy solder, anything harder won't melt before the silver burns off the copper wire core. You should already have good ventilation because of the fumes that come off the non-tarnish but when using easy solder this is extra important because it also creates toxic fumes when heated (due to one of the metals added to lower the melting temperature)
Easy solder is also the only hardness that will melt with a butane torch. A fancier propane or oxy-acetylene set up is needed for higher temperature work.
I hope this helped a bit, feel free to ask any more questions!
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ReplyDeleteThis is a great article thanks for sharing this informative information. I will visit your blog regularly for some latest post. I will visit your blog regularly for Some latest post. cheap soldering iron
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