[Jewelry making - Article 01135] - Re: [Orchid] Anybody Really Good with Overlay?

[Noel Yovovich]

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    Hi, Diana, This is not what you asked for (I don't have somebody to
    do piecework for you) but as a teacher of many beginning (and other)
    students, I want to encourage you to persist until you learn to do
    this well. What you have is called "sweat soldering", when you
    solder one piece flat onto another, pierced or not. It is one of the
    basic skills. You may want to practice on things that don't have
    hours of work in them, but it is not all that hard. Generally, I
    recommend placing bits of solder generously on the back of the
    smaller piece, after fluxing. Heat the piece until the solder runs,
    and use a solder pick as necessary to spread the solder all over,
    especially into corners and edges. Pickle it, then flux that and
    your backing piece, put them together, and heat until the solder
    flows again. If you concentrate your heat on the heavier piece,
    especially by heating from the back, the pieces will solder
    together. If the solder doesn't appear as a silver line all around
    the edge, gentle pressure with the side, not point, of your pick
    while keeping the solder fluid with the torch may help the solder
    run to those areas. The main problems that come up aRe: 

    1) too little solder. It takes quite a bit. If you have used too
    little, it is not easy to add more, once the piece is partly stuck
    together. 

    1a) too much solder-- it runs all over the place. This shows a lot
    on copper, but if the piece is to be cast, that may not matter. (If
    you want to cast it, you could do the whole business in wax sheet!) 

    2) too small a flame-- you must get the whole piece hot enough
    fairly quickly. This is especially important with copper, because
    taking too long will allow the copper to oxidize, and the solder
    will actually draw back into droplets (bead up) and refuse to
    spread. On the other hand, you are quite unlikely to melt your
    copper-- it has a much higher melting point than silver-- so go
    ahead and blast it. It's fun. 

    3) Bad fit. The pieces have to be nice and flat so that they have
    good contact, or the solder wont be drawn to all parts, or parts
    sticking up may melt. I gotta think that if you try this several
    times on scraps, you'll be ready to do this work for yourself. No
    guts, no glory! Good luck! 

--No=EBl


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