"Peter W.. Rowe,"

vise? what in the dickens are you doing with a vise in all this? Place
the
work loosely on a charcoal block, fire brick.....

I was using a fire brick but thought if I just held it in the very corner of
the vice, it would sink less heat. Can't win em all.


How 'bout a simple experiment first. Take a Small piece of silver, and
put a
bit of flux on it, and then a bit of solder on the flux. Just melt the
flux
onto the silver, to get an idea of how hot it needs to be and how it will
look....

I will try this tomorrow but that reminds me of what I read about the
HandyFlux somewhere. It referred to a chart that showed a relationship
between temp and color of the flux but there was no chart.

I gather it wants to be clear but like solder, it can get hot without the
part getting hot. I was able to get a ball or two to stick but nothing like
wetting the surface so far.

But
that all gets into the whole art of stone setting, virtually a profession
all
by itself. We'd probably best get you comfortable with just ordinary
silver
soldering first...

Frankly, the more we discuss this, the more it seems that the evils of soft
soldering are more in the mind of those who know how to do hard soldering.
For now, it seems like a bandaid I can live with but I am clueless as to
setting stones and cutting them is my bag and it would be fun not to hve to
buy settings. So if you can point me to a book on this "limited" subject, I
will order it.

BTW, I just had a brainstorm for making my broach. I call it a broach but
I really mean a setting for multiple stones that can be soldered en mass to
something like a chalice.

I have never used it but a friend of my wife makes really neat stuff with
polymer clay. I can fiddle and futz till I get what I want then bake it in
the toaster oven and voila... a free form pattern for sand casting.

js

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