Ahaaa.... Peter, the true moderator,
Thanks for your valuable imput.
Your right, of course, im from the old school of European precious metal
working ,but I like to think im honest with it even if it upsets some of
the people some of the time.
I do stand by my comments tho , about Jack's plans to make a silver
chalice decorated with set stones.
All one can go on in any comment I make is the writers written word,,
so when its said the plan is to set the stones with a torch one has to
assume thats what the enquirer wants to do.
Your comment that a student 2 months into a course could do it is true
also, however it implies that there is a teacher to point the student in
the right direction and that the premises where the teaching /learning
takes place has the correct equipment to do what the student aspires to
make.
Jack on the otherhand is presumably working from home, without the
benefit of a master to guide him so he faces the difficulty of finding
out himself the following.
He has to decidedon the design of the chalice, wether traditional,
medieval, rennaesence or contemporary, he has then to decide what
material to make it from. Having chosen silver, he than has to find out
what techniques he has to learn to put it all together. This then
defines the equipment hell need.
One could of course use soft ie lead tin solder to do this, you know as
well as I do thats not the way to have respect for the material in
question, ie silver, however its for the maker to decide not us, all we
can do is point out the way its allways been done and for what reasons.
I did think of suggesting that Jack makle his chalice out of say pewter,
or copper or even the harder alloy brass, all of these are well suited
to being assembled using soft solder, which hes good at, none the worse
for that, its an honest way if the design takes into account the
techniques needed to make the joints strong enough to stand the test of
time.
Ive been fortunate enough to have done quite a lot of restoration work
on brass and copper liturgical work which was made just that way.
To hard solder silver, where the solder melting temperature is over
600Deg. Centigrade is a different ball game alltogether. Relatively easy
on say a ring shank, but to join a thin rub over setting onto a chalice
body requires a great deal of knowhow, the right technique the right
equipment and fluxes. also the use of anti fire scale coatings. the
days of using reducing atmosphere charcoal brazier heating are long gone.
One just doesnt want to say to the enquirer , yes, go ahead get a
torch, itl be ok, and find that seveal chalices later its all gone wrong
and we get blamed for it.
I ll stand up and be counted on the point that its going to be really
difficult for Jack to get the results he wants without a lot of research
,experimentation, and technical exenditure on his part. I can assure you
both Its nothing personal.
Let me put it this way,
My hobby is hang gliding, its flying like in other aircraft, I need to
know similar skills, air law, meterology , flight rules ans so on, also
im still here so im reasonably good at it. but if I asked to fly say a
Cessna 2 seater, or something bigger, and a much more experienced pilot
said Im way out of my depth to even try without doing all the research
and training needed, id have to accept his word or pay the penalty if
Iscrewed it all up..
Ted Frater Dorset UK.







Peter W. Rowe wrote:
On Sun, 04 Jul 2004 07:31:59 -0700, in hô Jack Schmidling wrote:


"ted.ffrater"

Not again....

Hi Jack.

good that you took the time to put him down a bit, and did it politely too. I
was tempted myself. But moderators need to stay impartial, after all...

Ted's not a bad sort, just a rather old school european smith with typically
european attitudes about how quickly one can learn this craft. Your post
apparently gave him an overblown impression of how much of a beginner you might
be. Somehow, after looking at your web site, i don't doubt you know more than
you realize, just maybe haven't done it yet... (grin)

Ted's post does have some good starting points, he's just coming at it from a
typically european persepctive on silversmithing, which sometimes tends to make
a deep arcane art which takes years to learn, out of something we here in the
states have sophomore jewelry students doing happily by the end of the second
month of the fall semester... He's right in that real mastery of the craft of
silver smithing on the holloware level takes significant time and energy to
learn well, but I think he forgets just how much even a beginner can learn and
achieve on even the first piece.

In european training, actual holloware, like raising the goblet in the first
place, is considered advanced work, and i think he never quite got past that
point to your real questions about soldering. Plus, he's right about your
initial post suggesting, possibly correctly, that you're a bit of a beginner,
given your reticence to work with a torch (which in the end is easier than an
iron). But I'll disagree with him that it's so hard to learn.

A couple thoughts.

First, while I don't know a good web site that just directly shows you to solder
with a torch, most good jewelry making books will cover it, and jewelry scale
soldering is the same as what you're doing, except you might benefit from a
larger torch, such as the air/acetyelene smith or prestolite torches. Very nice
for silversmithing work with the larger tips, and just what you need for such
things.

Please don't consider using any solder that melts low enough for an iron. Even
the silver bearing ones are just not good strong joints. They DO offer the
advantage of no fire scale or annealing, but thier color match is poor, and once
used, you then cannot use proper silver soldering temps, or many techniques, on
the piece again, as the low melting solders then cause trouble. If you must use
such, consider instead the slightly pricier "TIX" brand. Not sure if it
contains silver, but it's intended for jewelry use, and stays a bit brighter
looking, plus it melts even lower than what you've probably got now. Even with
these solders, you'll have the best luch using a small torch to put the pieces
on.to the goblet. You'll need to be using something like closed back bezels, or
other solid back findings, rather than typical open backed heads, which simply
don't offer enough surface area for the low melting solders to give a useable
joint.

One web site you can go to for some reasearch is the Ganoksin.com site. it's
the home of the Orchid mail list, a far busier discussion site for jewelry
makers and hobbyists, and searching the archives of that site will no doubt find
you some instructional posts on soldering. Look up also, my own discussions on
that site for the use of Prips flux (or misspelled Pripps flux) for how to avoid
the problems with fire scale on silver when hard soldering. There are also many
discussions on best choices of torches, etc.

And if you like feel free to contact me via private email for any additional
pointers or questions you might run into. I'll be happy to help you figure this
out. Sounds like a fun project.

By the way, your web site is inspiring indeed. How do you find the time for
quite so many projects and interests?

Cheers

Peter