[Jewelry making - Article 00187] - [Orchid] Gold and Silver sludge

[troy hines]

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    I have a situation where gold and silver are alloying into each other
    (eutectic melding) and creating a mess. Lets see if anyone has ideas.

    We make an intricately textured sterling silver earring that gets an
    18K Yellow Gold bezel soldered into the center. The piece, then, gets
    liver of sulfur patina. Liver of sulfur will not color gold, but
    blackens the sterling nicely. 

    The problem is, the gold and silver are alloying into each other
    (eutectic melding), so that the gold is crawling into the valleys of
    the texture, and these alloyed areas will not patina. I understand
    why this is happening. My soldering people are overheating the piece.
    They are also using water torches, which I think are problematic. We
    are having a bit of a language barrier issue, and they dont
    understand what eutectic melding is, so I need to devise a fool proof
    strategy. 

    How can I set this item up for them so that this happens less often?
    Lower temp solder?  Paste solder?  Has anyone else had this problem
    with Sterling and gold?  

Thanks,
Troy

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