[Jewelry making - Article 01735] - Re: [Orchid] Soldering Copper to silver

[Stephen Walker]

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>         Is it possible to solder  a sheet of silver to a sheet of
>     copper 

    Absolutely. 

>         what kind solder would one use? 

    Any grade of silver or tin/lead solder will work. The choice depends
    on what you want to do with it. I used to always start with hard
    silver solder in projects like this but after many years realized
    that medium silver solder was probably better. The higher heat carries
    more risk of the solder disolving into the piece. Silver solder is an
    alloy of silver, copper and zinc. Add more copper and the melting
    temperature drops. When you silver solder to copper or a copper alloy
    the solder absorbs more copper from the material and the re-melt temp
    is actually lower than the solder was originally. How much lower
    depends on how hot and how long the solder was flowing. For this
    reason reheating silver-copper pieces for later soldering can get
    messy, because the solder melts again so easily. It is even worse
    soldering silver to brass. Silver to gold does the same thing. 

    But if you want to prevent warping and keep the temper of the metal
    you might want to consider using plumber's silver/tin solder. Melts
    around 450 F. This is great for sweating sheet together, but don't
    plan to forge or roll it afterwards and obviously you can forget about
    adding anything later on with silver solder. You have to use a soft
    solder flux and be sure not to leave any contamination on your
    soldering bench because the stuff will eat right into silver or gold
    if it is heated to hard soldering temperatures. 

Stephen Walker

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