Silver Soldering

Hi,

A newbie fiddling about with making some stuff ..........
Have done a fair bit of soldering before, but using the common all
garden stuff mainly for electrical use.

Is silver solder any different (apart from the price) ??

Melt at the same temp with a small soldering iron?? For
securing/closing necklace rings and the like

Thanks

On Sat, 27 Mar 2004 09:38:39 -0800, in rec.crafts.jewelry Jack Ouzzi
wrote:

Hi,

A newbie fiddling about with making some stuff ..........
Have done a fair bit of soldering before, but using the common all
garden stuff mainly for electrical use.

Is silver solder any different (apart from the price) ??


yes. Quite different. lead solders and tin solders, (the electronic types).
flow out onto the metal, but don't penetrate it. the result has about the same
strength as a good glue. Silver solders, and similar materials (which are more
precisly described as brazing materials, not solders), don't just flow out on
the metal being joined, but penetrate into it. the resulting bond is many
times stronger, equal in some cases, to the strength of the parent material.
and since the solder is also a silver alloy, the color can match much better
too. If you close a silver jump ring with lead solder, the result is a weak
joint looking like a blob of darker metal on the silver jump ring. This can
work well enough if the joint doesn't take a lot of stress, but isn't the best
looking. By contrast, a properly silver soldered joint on the silver jump
ring disappears visually, and is almost as strong as the silver ring itself.
Also note that once you've used lead/tin solders on a piece of silver, you must
remove all traces of that solder before you can use the higher melting silver
solders. Any traces left on the silver will cause damage if you then heat to
temps needed for silver solders.

Melt at the same temp with a small soldering iron?? For
securing/closing necklace rings and the like


Your electronics solders flow at temps from 400 to 600 degrees. Pretty cool.
silver solders generally operate at temps around two to three times that,
depending on the grade of solder used. You can't do it with a soldering iron.
You need, generally speaking, a torch. You'll also need the proper fluxing
materials, which are also different from those used with low melting solders.

The temps needed for silver soldering will also require some different means to
support the work during soldering than just your table top, and you may also
need additional materials for cleaning off oxides formed during soldering, as
well as repolishing the silver after it's soldered.

Hope that helps.

Peter Rowe

On Sat, 27 Mar 2004 17:55:29 GMT, Peter W. Rowe
pwrowe@ixDOTnetcomDOTcom wrote:

On Sat, 27 Mar 2004 09:38:39 -0800, in rec.crafts.jewelry Jack Ouzzi
wrote:


The temps needed for silver soldering will also require some different means to
support the work during soldering than just your table top, and you may also
need additional materials for cleaning off oxides formed during soldering, as
well as repolishing the silver after it's soldered.

Hope that helps.

Peter Rowe

Yep .... just about all I needed to know ...... Thanks Peter

So if you hold it in your fingers when silver soldering in could hurt
:-)

Yes and no. If you have done "NASA Certified" soldering then the description
for a good solder connection is the same. Shiny joint, good filleting,
amalgamation, and etc.

Although higher temperatures are normally used is silver soldering (rosin
isn't an adequate flux at those temps) there are special 'silver solders'
that flow at lower temps and can be applied using a regular soldering iron.
I have never concerned myself with the alloy content of those solders (TIX
for example) but I doubt they contain any silver. Rosin flux, preferably
without chloride, is adequate at these temps (around 300F).

Their claim to fame is that they can be polished to a silver white color
which is supposed to be permanent. Of course, they do not have the strength
of regular silver solders and are relatively expensive but maybe adequate
for your purposes.

"Jack Ouzzi" wrote in message
...
Hi,

A newbie fiddling about with making some stuff ..........
Have done a fair bit of soldering before, but using the common all
garden stuff mainly for electrical use.

Is silver solder any different (apart from the price) ??

Melt at the same temp with a small soldering iron?? For
securing/closing necklace rings and the like

Thanks