Can I melt down old jewelry that has solder spots in it? I have a bag of old silver jewelry and a silversmith I spoke to said she couldn’t do it because most of it had solder and I’d need to cut out the soldered areas but I just watched a video of a silversmith who melted down a bunch of stuff and didn’t seem worried about soldered spots.
I’ve been using a homemade pickle (1cup white vinegar, 1 tbsp salt) and it seems to be working very well but I’m wondering if there’s a benefit to using store bought pickle? Why don’t I see more people using this homemade solution. It seems like all the big jewelry accounts on YouTube use the store bought stuff.
Does anyone know where I can buy 999 and 925 silver sheet and wire (for jewelry making) in Thailand?
I'm a hobbyist jewelry maker and going to be in Thailand for a few months and will need a supplier.
Hi, I live in Thailand for about 6-7 months a year and want to continue my silversmithing hobby over there but I'm having a hard time finding a supplier of silver. I know finding gemstones is very easy...but silver not so much.
If anyone know where I can buy in Thailand, please let me know. Thank you!
I don't have a tumber....so other than a little hammering on the wire area how would I work harden this piece? It's extremely soft right now from the 4 pieces being soldered onto it.
I saw a video of a guy trying to melt scrap copper pieces (small pieces) (or maybe it was brass, I can't remember) and it literally exploded. Is this common? At what point does it happen? How can I avoid ever having it happen to me. I think if it did I'd be so scared to solder again.
So I'm practicing my soldering skills on copper. I have a 12 gauge wire trying to solder to a 20 gauge cutout shape. I picked 2 piece of solder into the space once it seemed hot enough. I was focusing the heat on the 12 gauge wire over the cutout shape and using propane at medium strength. After about 2.5 - 3 minute it just wouldn't flow. Not sure what I'm doing wrong. Maybe I need full strength heat from my torch? Maybe I just need to go in fast and hot right at the spot?
Any suggestions?
So I think I know what all my mistakes were and I'm guessing on how to fix them...but maybe someone has more feedback for me.
my bezel was 30 gauge and that was too thin and i probably applied too much heat and hence the holes where it attaches to the backplate appeared.
my bezel was too high (6mm) for this stone hence the wrinkles in the wrap around part at the top of the stone...should have used a 4mm probably .. (?)
in the second image there's this blob/lumpy thing on the side (this is not the side that I soldered the join, it's the opposite side) and I'm not sure where it came from. It appeared after I soldered the band to the backplate. There was no solder there, nothing on my fire brick...so I'm not sure how this lump just appeared. Is this a thing? On the opposite side (inside) of the bezel there was nothing..it looked perfectly normal. My first guess is that it was a piece of melted solder...but there was no solder in the area so that is confusing.
under the backplate a chip of solder melted flush into the backplate. Strange that it's completely flush? Is that a thing?
I will probably disassemble this and just use it as scrap and try again but it was fun doing it.
If I solder a piece and after cleaning in pickle I see that it didn't flow all the way through ...maybe only partially... what's the best way to fix it? Can I just flux and re-heat and try to pull the solder through? Or do I have to reverse everything..get rid of previous solder, file, clean and do it over?
What gauge bezel wire do you recommend for newbies? I purchase a small amount of 30 gauge but it’s so soft I cannot get it to lay flush on my 24 g backplate which is very straight. I’ve been sanding for a while to try and get it straight but nothing seems to be improving. There are still gaps.
HI Guys... I can't figure out what is going wrong here....
When I move the text box on the left page of the Master Page spread...it move the text on the right pages? and vice versa... very strange... but I'm sure it' something so simple. Here's a link to a screenrecording. https://share.zight.com/eDu4kRNz if anyone can help me out.
UPDATE: Finally got it to work!!! I was too scare to just give it strong heat...but soon I did...it flowed within a few second. Thank you everyone for your help!!!
Follow up to my first post: https://www.reddit.com/r/SilverSmith/comments/1u43b6w/comment/orerfl7/?screen_view_count=3
I upgraded my torch to a Bernzomatic Fire Torch Creator using Propane. I'm adding flux, not too much, using soft solder here in this video. Still taking forever to flow and eventually my metal just turns black and flux is all burned off. I had my torch at around 1/2 way up...then about 1/3 of the way through the video I turned it up to about 3/4 high. Then for the ring I turned it back down a bit. I'm so confused. Tried not to put the flame right on the solder area..instead focused on just heating the metal.
I tried soldering 2 pieces of wire together...then I tried a ring with a near perfect fit...freshy sanded smooth, clean and absolutely touching.
Not sure what else I'm doing wrong. At the end I just get so mad and blast the f'n solder cause I'm pissed off.
I am very new to soldering (obviously)...
12 g copper wire. 2 pieces, no gaps, definitely tightly touching, sanded, clean (just pickled and wiped dry), held together by stainless wire, fluxed thoroughly.
Small drop of hard silver solder, hand torch on high..and almost 4 minutes later still not flowing..???
What am I doing wrong?
I am very new to soldering (obviously)...
12 g copper wire. 2 pieces, no gaps, definitely tightly touching, sanded, clean (just pickled and wiped dry), held together by stainless wire, fluxed thoroughly.
Small drop of hard silver solder, hand torch on high..and almost 4 minutes later still not flowing..???
What am I doing wrong?