[Jewelry making - Article 00940] - [Orchid] New Experience with Pickle

[Noel]

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Hi, all, and Merry Christmas!

    I had an experience this week that was new to me, and I want to run
    it by you, my colleagues, to see whether it is odd, or a common
    thing that I have just never run into before. 

    I was almost finished with a commission piece in silver with a
    couple of teensie three-knuckle hinges-- just "bringing up the fine
    silver" before the final polish and setting. I was interrupted just
    as I put it into my very hot citric-acid pickle. I got dragged into
    a lengthy "thing", forgetting about the piece for seven hours. When
    I resumed work on it, it was dingy gray, but I've had that happen
    before, and I just sighed and began re-polishing. 

    To my surprise-- and distress-- all the small solder joints fell
    apart, including the hard-solder joints in the bezel strip, though
    the bezels themselves did not come off. It took me til midnight to
    fix the damage and finish the piece (I had arranged delivery the
    next morning-- yesterday). The larger solder joints seemed fine, and
    didn't appear pitted. 

    Now, anyone could probably guess that it isn't a good idea to leave
    a piece so long in the pickle, but I feel fairly sure this isn't the
    first time I've done that. I've never had soldered joints fall apart
    like that. I might wonder if something is wrong with my solder, if
    the joints hadn't been made with three different ones! 

    Anyone care to comment (other than telling me the obvious, that it
    was a bush league mistake to leave a piece in the pickle when I was
    called away)?

Noel

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