[Jewelry making - Article 00005] - Re: [Orchid] Soldering Argentium Silver

[Jan McClellan]

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    Thanks Trevor and Judy and all else who answered my call for help. 
    I thought you might like to know how things went today in my
    learning experience with Argentium silver. 

    First I made two bezels - a very small 4mm round one and one about
    20 x 12mm.  I'm sticking with my 28gu fine silver 6mm wide bezel
    wire (that is what I have, fits the stone, and I don't want to roll
    out bezel from the A. silver, just lazy I guess). 

    this time I used 22 gu A. silver, cutting the pieces to be a little
    larger than the bezels. I cleaned the metal with a scotch pad and
    laid them  on a charcoal block, then heated them a bit and brushed
    on some Battern's flux. I sanded the bottom of the bezels, brushed
    on Battern's and put some more flux on the metal plates.  Then I
    placed the solder bits inside the bezels.  I used easy silver solder
    since the medium I started with Saturday didn't work at all.  I put
    a couple of thin strips of scrap siIver under the larger plate so
    that I could direct the flame under it,  turned out the lights
    (there is a window at the other end of my shop) and heated very
    slowly with a small pointy flame under the plate.  the solder began
    to flow!  amazing!! 

    I did put a little solder chip on the outside ledge so I could tell
    when it reached flowing temp.  I went around the whole piece this
    way, moving it so there was no silver strip under the place where I
    wanted the solder to flow.  I found out that the A. silver reaches
    hot pink or cherry red before the solder flowed.  The little 4mm
    bezel went much quicker. After sawing away the "ledge" around the
    bezels and smoothing them with a wheel, I found that the bezel had
    joined all the way around. 

    Next I soldered the little gold post that connects the two pieces. 
    To do that I pressed the large piece into the charcoal block, bezel
    side down, so that the "post" would lay level with the back - and
    this way the solder is on the back and wont show on the front of the
    pendant.  I pushed in a straight pin to hold the post up against the
    large piece.  I laid an easy solder chip on that seam.  This time I
    used more light so I could tell if the chip flew away and if the
    seam filled.  I ended up using about 3 solder chips.  Getting the
    4mm bezel piece to stay in place pushed against the other end of the
    post was a bit harder but was accomplished - then I soldered two
    half rings for bales (the piece will be a slide) on the back of the
    larger piece and this time I left all the lights on.  I noticed that
    I can't see the red color with the lights on, but I needed to be
    able to see how the solder is flowing and to make sure nothing is
    moving.  Worked great. 

    For me the secret seems to be to heat slower than I usually do with
    reg. sterling. 

    I think  the Argentium silver works ok for smaller pieces - at least
    I don't feel brave enough to try to do one of my big bezels yet. 
    And yet it is on the bigger things that the fire scale really shows
    up.  Hopefully there will soon be an argentium solder available that
    will work better.  I'm going to do some experimenting with
    reticulation using the pieces I ruined Sat. and that will be pure
    fun.  At any rate I am not as afraid of A silver as I was and no
    longer so frantic (my state when I did my first post on the
    subject.) 

    Thanks again - what a wonderful forum this is! 

    sorry this is so wordy.

Jan
www.designjewel.com

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