[Jewelry making - Article 00502] - [Orchid] Soldering silver to copper

[alexandra]

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hello everyone

    I'm hoping that someone can help me with this puzzle: 

    I am setting stones in garments so instead of making the back of a
    bezel out of silver I use copper as the back can't be seen anyway and
    it's a lot cheaper. Until now I have been setting rather small stones
    so heating the copper plate from underneath on a tripod and using
    self-pickling flux along with medium or easy solder sheet has not
    been much of problem. But I have just recently needed to bezel a
    larger stone, therefore had to use a much larger piece of copper plate
    and the same soldering method doesn't work anymore, the temperature
    difference is so big that I end up melting the bezel or burning all
    the flux before actually soldering the two. Now a friend of mine uses
    plumber's solder and flux for the same method and it seems to work
    for him but when I tried the results are as desastrous as they are
    frustrating: either the solder eats the bezel, or it ends up making a
    clump the second I touch it to the copper... 

    I am asuming that I'm doing something wrong here and am definetly
    asking for help as I am out if ideas and I really need to finish this
    project. 

    Is there another way to soder silver and copper toghether? A
    different flux or a solder? Or maybe I'm not getting the temperature
    right? 

    p.s. the plumber solder I'm using is the lead free BernzOmatic and
    the torch is a pin point propane of the same brand. I tried a smaller
    more delicate torch but it can't heat the copper enough... 

thank you
regards

alexis

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