soldering

The previous thread on soldering silver plate made me wonder about soldering
gold filled wire or sheet (rolled gold). The gold would be thicker than
plate.

--
Connie Ryman
Cryman Studio

On Sun, 12 Mar 2006 10:23:44 -0800, in rec.crafts.jewelry "C Ryman"
wrote:

The previous thread on soldering silver plate made me wonder about soldering
gold filled wire or sheet (rolled gold). The gold would be thicker than
plate.

Gold or silver electroplate is made very differently from gold filled stock. The
plated metal has precious metal layer that's mere microns thick, while the
mechanically laminated gold filled metal has a layer of gold thick enoughto be
described as a fraction of the total weight. Common are things like 1/20or
1/40th of the total weight of the metal being the precious metal layer. That's
not just thicker. That's a LOT thicker. When you heat up plated metal to
solder it, there are often one or more intermediary electroplate layers under
the precious metal as well, which affects the bond with the precious metal outer
layer. So soldering heat makes it more likely that a plated coating willbubble
or flake off, and even slight fire scale or oxidation then needs enough cleaning
afterwards to remove the plated layer. With gold filled metal, you stillneed
to be careful to use lower temperature range solders, since of course the
sandwich will have different melting points than solid metal, and you want to
minimize chances of melting or fire scale. But with care and lower melting
point solders, gold fill can be soldered just fine. The biggest concern is that
you simply have to work 'cleanly" enough that you won't then need to use lots of
abrasives to clean up tool marks, solder marks, or the like, since with that
sort of aggresive working, you can indeed cut right through the gold filllayer.
But other than that, it's totally different from working plated metal.

Peter

As Peter said, you need to be very careful to prevent color changes and
fire scales. Once you are, soldering gold filled is not too difficult,
although not very pleasant.
http://sarit-jewelry.com/Rings/Goldf..._Ring9843.html
The ring shown in the above link is all gold filled and required 3
soldering: First, the gold filled D profile wire was soldered to form
the ring, then a gf plate was sawed and shaped to form the bezel
setting for the stone and soldered to the hammered plate, and finally
the hammered gf plate was soldered to the ring. I use 14k Gold easy
solder and dip all gf parts in acid boric prior to soldering.

Speaking of gold filled, I wonder how popular gf jewelry are in the US
or anywhere else. In Israel, people are reluctant when they hear that a
piece is made of gold filled. It is hard to convince them that this is
not at all like gold plated jewelry. Many customers that are not after
the value of gold and are happy with the price of gold filled won't buy
it because they are afraid it'll wear off as plated jewelry.
Sarit.
http://sarit-jewelry.com




C Ryman wrote:
The previous thread on soldering silver plate made me wonder about soldering
gold filled wire or sheet (rolled gold). The gold would be thicker than
plate.

--
Connie Ryman
Cryman Studio