[Jewelry making - Article 01008] - Re: [Orchid] New Experience with Pickle

[Donna Shimazu]

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>     I believe that the pickle eats away at the zinc in the solder
>     leaving the alloy brittle and weak. Too many unneccesassary
>     heating/ pickling operations just aren't great for the project....

    I agree with Andy that too much exposure to pickle leaches out the
    solder alloy making it brittle. A couple of years ago, I soldered
    several dozen pairs of gold posts onto sterling earrings with hard
    solder. The phone rang so I fished the earrings out of the pickle and
    tossed them into a pan of plain water. I planned to rinse them off,
    but the phone call went longer than expected and I completely forgot
    about the earrings. The next day, I rinsed them off with baking soda,
    dried them and went to twist harden the posts with a pair of pliers.
    To my horror, the solder joints were brittle and the posts twisted
    off. I ended up cleaning off the depleted solder and resoldering all
    of them. 

    Even a very diluted pickle bath, albeit with long exposure
    (overnight/10+ hours), was damaging to the solder. 

    As a matter of course, I never soak work in pickle any longer than
    necessary and I try to do as many solderings as possible before
    pickling. I often quick cool work in water or boric acid/alcohol
    instead of pickle when doing a series of solderings. (NOTE: I take
    special care not to spill or set the alcohol on fire when quenching.)
    This minimizes the overall exposure to pickle. 

Donna Shimazu

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