[Jewelry making - Article 00885] - Re: [Orchid] Flux before annealing?

[John Donivan]

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>     Shouldn't you at least wear a leather apron? ; ) 

    Nah Elaine, I gotta be FREE!!! HAHA.. I woke up this morning
    thinking, "I'll bet that post is gonna come back on me..." First
    off, everything posted today is true, at least in principle. Second,
    here's an interesting article by C.L. Brain about the subject:
    http://www.silversmithing.com/1fire.htm. OK, here's the thing. I
    don't work silver any more but occassionally. Back in the day, I
    worked hundreds of pounds of it - was a time I checked out 3-5
    pounds a week, doing piecework. Next, firescale is the bane of
    silversmithing - we all know that. If you read the article above
    carefully, you may notice that he dances around it, and never quite
    just comes out and says, "You are going to have firescale, get used
    to it.", but nearly so. Back when I used silver a lot, I tried each
    and every product that promised, "No Firescale", "Firescale resist",
    Firescale killer or whatever. You know what? Not a single one of
    them worked. I'd use it, I'd polish, and there it was, every time. If
    anybody does have such a product I'd be real interested in hearing
    about it, just for knowlege (if it doesn't work I'll flame it,
    though). Flux most certainly does not work, as you'll find every
    time you solder silver. Less firescale? What does that mean,
    exactly? Sure, it's less firescale. You're still going to have to
    remove firescale, whether it's more or less. The point being, since
    you ARE going to have it when working silver, don't be all nervous
    about it. It's just part of the experience. The worst thing you can
    do is to heat silver to a cherry red heat (the heat before orange).
    THAT will give you so much firescale it may destroy your piece.
    Other than that, it's just going to be there.... Try to solder
    everything before final filing, stuff like that. If you get it hot,
    it will stain, unless you have an inert gas kiln or the like. 

http://www.donivanandmaggiora.com

 
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