"P.W. Rowe,"

Or, you could spend a few bucks and actually buy a book.....

As I said earlier, I no longer buy books unless I can thumb through them or
know it is a book I want.

If you can find a Borders or Barnes and Noble book store around
somewhere.........

"Somewhere" is a 3 hour drive.

You simply didn't get it hot enough. Hard soldering a small piece onto a
larger thick piece in silver can be problematic, since silver is such a
good
heat conductor. In your case, you pretty much didn't need to be heating
the
jump ring hardly at all.....

Fact is, I gave up on the jump ring and just tried getting the solder to
flow period...
I put away the micro torch and got out the Ace Hardware propane torch,
insulated the piece from the vice with two pieces of ceramic and then gave
up.

3. Your metal wasn't clean in the first place. The flux dissolves
oxides, but
it won't help if there's grease or dirt on the joint. The metal should be
clean and bright.....

Is this a chemical clean or mechanical? Like some kind of acid or wire
brush/file clean?

Try it again.

Roger.

If you did this with a good silver solder, soldering silver wire, rather
than
solder wire, the appearance would be much better, as the solder would
visually
blend in. also, such a solder joint is strong enough that you don't need
to
drill holes. it can be a butt joint......

Hmmmm.. I like that but I need to solve the basic problem first. Assuming I
do, keeping all the butts standing while soldering seems like a monumental
problem.

But as you've
discovered, and as we've been trying to tell you all along, there are
aesthetic
issues connected with Tix and other soft solders. They just don't look as
good.....

I am not at the aesthetic point yet where color match would bother me. I'm
talking about slobbering solder where I don't want it and no way to get rid
of it.

Also, when it comes to setting the stone, you'll find the solder wire to
be a lot stiffer and harder to bend properly, than is sterling or fine
silver....

I was saving that question for later. I was surprised at how stiff the
solder wire is and please with the idea that it would take quite an effort
to accidentally knock a stone off.

Would I need a heavier gage in steriling for the same strength?
On one of these I notched it to bend in the right place but the second one
didn't require this because I moved them farther out.

Roger on the rest.

js


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