Soldering Brass

Hi! I have been subscribing for about a year, and mainly lurking
while I teach myself silversmithing (I learn a lot from you
guys). I have a question:

What solder does a person use when soldering brass? Every solder
I use shows up white against the yellow brass. Is there a
yellow-colored solder out there somewhere that I am just not
finding?

What solder does a person use when soldering brass?

I’ve used about all of them at one time or another. It depends
on the final piece. Sweat solder with low melt stuff,
Staybright, lead. or Tix solder. Rio sells a solder for
“gold-filled or brass” On one piece I used sterling wire to
solder brass wire

I’m not paranoid! Which of my enemies told you this?

Bobert

    What solder does a person use when soldering brass? Every
solder I use shows up white against the yellow brass. Is there
a yellow-colored solder out there somewhere that I am just not
finding?

G’day; the short snappy answer is - yes: gold solder! But that
is a biti mpractical. If you have your joins literally touching
as you should with silver solder using a minimum amount of
Easi-Flo the line of not-quite silver will be so fine as not to
be noticeable unless you take a lens to the job. Cheers,

        /\
       / /    John Burgess, 
      / /
     / //\    @John_Burgess2
    / / \ \
   / (___) \
  (_________)

I don’t have the original poster’s name so excuse me if I
address all…

There is a French-made solder in rod-form which has a fairly low
melting point and I saw it being used for the repair of the
frames for eye- glasses and contains flux. It’s available in
silver and gold colours. I’m not sure exactly where to purchase
it (mine was given to me) but the name is “Pallarium”

The details on the label are as follows:

"PALLARIUM is a new solder with a melting point of 580 degC,
formed of a hollow rod, of 1mm diameter, and inside which is a
special component acting as flux.

PALLARIUM ensures the soldering of all kinds of metals in the
dental practice, nickel-chrome, stainless steel, chrome cobolt,
gold, silver, etc.

PALLARIUM is available in a standard quality of white shade and
similar to white or yellow gold of 20 carats.

PALLARIUM is always ready for use and for immeadiate casting,
does not produce any bulbs on the wire, does not carbonize."

The manufacturer is:
Airel
917 rue Marcel Paul
ZA des Grands Godets
F 94500 Champigny-sur-Marne
France.
Tel (1) 48.82.22.22
Fax (1) 48.82.46.13

I have no connection with the company although I have used both
the gold and silver colours and they seem about as strong as
ordinary precious metal solders.

I hope this helps.

Regards,

Kerry
| Website - http://www.bennie.demon.co.uk/ |
| Hand made Celtic and Scottish Jewellery, Katunayake, Creagorry, |
|Isle of Benbecula, Outer Hebrides HS7 5PG Kingdom of Scotland |
|Tel:44 1870 602677 Fax:44 1870 602956 Mobile:44 85-005-9162 |

There is a French-made solder in rod-form which has a fairly low
melting point and I saw it being used for the repair of the
frames for eye- glasses and contains flux.  It's available in
silver and gold colours. I'm not sure exactly where to purchase
it (mine was given to me) but the name is "Pallarium"

If I’ve seen this in a catalog, I don’t remember. Does anyone
know a source for this in the US? I’d like to try it. Thanks

Merry Holidays!

Nancy
Bacliff, TX USA
@nbwidmer

    What solder does a person use when soldering brass? Every
solder I use shows up white against the yellow brass. Is there
a yellow-colored solder out there somewhere that I am just not
finding?

I do a lot of mixed metal designs and almost always use silver
solder. In fact I almost always use fine silver as bezel for my
brass pieces. If you are careful to have your joins correctly
matched up and use only the amount of solder needed you shouldn’t
have any problem. Two things to try: 1) use more tiny pallions
instead of fewer large ones (but not too many) 2) as your piece
reaches the flow temperature for the solder, keep the flame of
your torch close to the join because the solder will flow out
toward the heat. I use easy, medium or hard solder dependent on
how many steps follow. Good luck.

Merry Holidays!
Nancy
Bacliff, TX USA
@nbwidmer

Kerry…I read your report on Pollarium solder with great
interest because it seemed like the answer to so many of my
prayers…but then I looked at the melting temperture of 580
deg C. The Fahrenheit equivalent of that is approximately 1075
deg F. My guess is that that is pretty high for an eyeglass frame
repair which I assume was gold-filled . Certainly the gold would
stand up O.K. but I’d be concerned about the white metal under
it. Despite this the product if I can locate it seems very
worthwhile. The lowest melting temperature in my data sheets is
that of 6K Repair solder which melts at 621 C (1150 F). Thanks
for your input. Sol K.

Hi Sol,

I’ll re-check the temp on the packet, but, yes, it is a little
high! I’m pretty sure it was as I have written but it was a
translation from French and wasn’t particularly well worded. :slight_smile:

I’ll post again when I’ve been to the workshop (I’m doing the
boring old paperwork at the moment.)

Kind regards,

Kerry
| Website - http://www.bennie.demon.co.uk/ |
| Hand made Celtic and Scottish Jewellery, Katunayake, Creagorry, |
|Isle of Benbecula, Outer Hebrides HS7 5PG Kingdom of Scotland |
|Tel:44 1870 602677 Fax:44 1870 602956 Mobile:44 85-005-9162 |

Hell Sol,

I checked on the solder and yes, it is 580 deg. Centigrade. My
experience of working with it is that it melts very readily in a
propane torch and I guess that the walls of the tube are
probably very thin allowing it to heat up rapidly. Certainly, the
guy who was using it was using a hot torch for a short time
period. I can’t remember what fuel mixture he was using but it
was much hotter than my propane but for a very short duration.
Anyway, as I said, it works fine with propane.

I hope this helps.

Kind regards,

Kerry

| Website - http://www.bennie.demon.co.uk/ |
| Hand made Celtic and Scottish Jewellery, Katunayake, Creagorry, |
|Isle of Benbecula, Outer Hebrides HS7 5PG Kingdom of Scotland |
|Tel:44 1870 602677 Fax:44 1870 602956 Mobile:44 85-005-9162 |