newbie questions

In rec.crafts.jewelry on or about Wed, 28 May 2008 18:06:50 -0700 we
heard the sounds of a voice named Mr G H Ireland
crying out from afar, saying:



On the subject of matching solders to substrates, is there a solder that
makes a strong joint between two pieces of stainless, that also makes a good
colour match to stainless?

The type I use appears yellowish against SS. Any suggestions?

Thanks in anticipation, for your time.---G.H.Ireland.

Better late than never:
Try "soldering" your stainless steel using nickel.
Use the us coins (Nickels) they cost less...

In rec.crafts.jewelry on or about Sat, 24 May 2008 20:47:11 -0700 we
heard the sounds of a voice named "Peter W.. Rowe,"
crying out from afar, saying:

Regarding the below,
I use alcohol & boric acid daily.
I put my alcohol in a wide mouthed apothecary jar (glass with ground
lid). My mixture is: fill jar almost all the way up with denatured
alcohol, pour boric acid (which I buy by the 10lb. bag...it's not in
powdered form but rather in tiny little beads, like sand...new laws in
the US have made boric acid powder to be classified as an insecticide
and therefore the price has skyrocketed. The form I buy it in is used
as a cleaning product and therefore much cheaper.)
The amount, as Peter said, is not critical. I simply make a
super-saturated mixture by pouring in (probably) too much boric acid.

But unlike Peter, I allow it to settle and DO NOT stir it before use.
I get a consist ant, smooth, white coating that works really well.
I also keep a giant syringe with needle (point belt-sanded down)
filled with that yellow/green liquid flux for spot fluxing as needed.
(I rarely have to use it.)



First, boric acid is not borax. They are related, but not the same. As fluxing
agents. boric acid is less active, but withstands a higher temperature. Boric
acid powder is commonly mixed with alcohol in which items can be dipped to
reduce or prevent fire scale or surface oxidation during soldering. It's mostly
effective on gold and platinum. On silver it tends not to stick to the surface
well enough to give much protection (on heating, it tends to ball up instead of
melting to a uniform glaze on the surface). Many jewelers used to using it with
gold routinely use it with silver too just out of habit, but there are better
ways to protect the silver from fire stain or fire scale. Prips flux is one
method, a spray on flux you make yourself from borax, boric acid, and sodium
phosphate (TSP). Ask if you want the full recipe. Or you can buy products
(including premixed prips flux) that will do the job and may be easier)

The boric acid by itself will not serve as an adequate soldering flux, though
occasionally you'll still get a decent solder joint if everything was clean
enough and there's enough boric acid there. Borax, though, which melts lower,
does indeed work OK as a silver soldering flux. Very traditional. Usually, one
buys "cones" of the stuff made for flux, which has been heated to drive off the
water content (anhydrous borax). This differs from the laundry type product in
that, on heating, it doesn't swell and foam up all over the place, making it
more useful as a flux. Usually it's ground to a paste with water just before
use on a slate borax dish or unglazed ceramic tile or similar surface. Or you
can use the laundry grade powder (borateem at the grocery store is pretty much
pure borax), but as I said, it's a bit messier to use.

More active soldering fluxes are better than borax, however, giving you better
solder flow and stronger seams. You can get plain liquid fluxes like Batterns
or other commercial liquids that are intended for all types of jewelry
soldering. They work well. Even more active are the white paste fluxes (like
Handy flux, grifflux, etc). Some of these, like handy flux, do contain
fluorides, so pay attention when buying them. You're better with those that
don't have free/active fluorides in them, for safety reasons. nasty fumes from
the fluoride fluxes, but they ARE more effective fluxes for difficult soldering
jobs, if you're equipped to safely use them.

Back to the boric acid in alcohol mix, the proportions aren't critical. Dump
some powder into some denatured alcohol (ethanol). The alcohol is just there as
a carrier, so the proportions aren't critical. Mix in enough so it's like a
thin "milk" when stirred, so dipping a piece gets leaves a film of boric acid
powder on the work after the alcohol dries or is burned off. Too thin doesn't
deposit much boric acid, too thick is messy to work with, but between those,
there's a wide area.

And the container doesn't have to be glass. Glass has one advantage over, say,
plastic, in that if you accidentally set the mix on fire, you just drop the lid
on it to put it out, and the container doesn't catch fire. on the other hand,
if you drop a glass jar, it breaks, making a mess. But almost any container
you'd like to use if fine. Something with a wide enough mouth so you can dip
your workpieces in the container is needed, and with glass you can see how much
boric acid is in the mix before you stir it up, as well as more easily fishing
out small bits dropped in the jar by mistake (lift up the jar and look through
the bottom to see where the errant part landed...) But other than convenience,
there's no real requirement for glass. Just make sure it's not itself
flammable, or too tippy, etc. And it must have a lid you can drop in place in
case you catch the jar on fire.

Oh, one other reason why glass can be useful. A few types of gold alloys (rose
gold, some white golds) benefit when you anneal them from being quenched in
alcohol, rather than either air cooling or being quenched in water. If you've
got a metal or glass (thus heatproof) container for your boric acid solution,
you can let it do double duty for that task, rather than needing a seperate
container of alcohol. Drop a hot bit of rose gold into a plastic jar filled
with alcohol and it will melt through the bottom before fully quenching...

Cheers

Peter

wrote:
In rec.crafts.jewelry on or about Wed, 28 May 2008 18:06:50 -0700 we
heard the sounds of a voice named Mr G H Ireland
crying out from afar, saying:


On the subject of matching solders to substrates, is there a solder that
makes a strong joint between two pieces of stainless, that also
makes a good
colour match to stainless?

The type I use appears yellowish against SS. Any suggestions?

Thanks in anticipation, for your time.---G.H.Ireland.

Better late than never:
Try "soldering" your stainless steel using nickel.
Use the us coins (Nickels) they cost less...


Nickels are not made of pure Nickel. They are made of 75% Copper and
25% Nickel

--
Abrasha
http://www.abrasha.com

I have been waiting for about 5 days now but the shipping times are 10-19 days. As soon as I get them I will let you know. I have not seen you on that forum for a long time now and I was wondering where you are? How did it go with the collection that you got? Here is the link to the beads again http://www.liangdianup.com/beadscrafts_1.htm and here is the link to the Swarovski beads http://www.liangdianup.com/inventory/900020.htm if those links don't work then you can goto www.lducompany.com and click on the beads picture, that should take you right there. I hope you see this message and get back to me cause I miss talking to you