
Photo by Tahlia Doyle : unsplash.com/@tahliaclaire
Questions Answered
One of the questions I get from people just learning how to make jewelry, and even just neato stuff like sculptures, out of fine metals (copper, brass, silver, sterling silver, gold, etc) is:
Why am I having such a hard time soldering my stuff together?
This is a problem, even for accomplished metalsmiths sometimes, and comes down to a few simple issues.
- The solder, metal, and/or joint is dirty. It could be finger grease or body oils, it could be literal dirt, or it could be the oxidation formed as the metal is heated.
- The joint being soldered isn’t making good contact. Yep, that’s right, you need really good contact of the pieces being soldered in order for the solder to flow into the joint. The example I used helping someone the other day was super glue. You don’t use super glue to fill holes and gaps. Whatever you’re gluing with super glue needs to connect well, like your fingers when you accidentally glue them together when you’re repairing that mug you dropped last weekend when you had friends over for brunch. Yeah, like that.
So, interesting tidbit, soldering fine metals is actually a form of brazing, not soldering. “What’s the difference,” you ask? Well, soldering occurs at temperatures below 840℉ and brazing occurs at temperatures above 840℉. True soldering is usually used for electronics. It isn’t meant for structural integrity. It’s meant to create electrical conductivity (in many cases but not all.) Brazing, on the other hand, creates a metallurgical bond (think increased strength because you’re bonding metal together at the molecular level.) It can also be used to bond dissimilar metals, like gold and silver, or brass and copper, etc.
(Side note: welding is when you melt together like metal with like metal, you’re literally fusing the metal together. This is also done with a variety of jewelry techniques, but can be trickier.)
Okay, okay, so yeah, technical mumbo jumbo aside, how do you create a nice joint when making jewelry?
You clean the metal with sandpaper, or pickle it in the pickle pot in an acidic solution which chemically cleans the metal. You create a nice joint that touches. Repeat after me: the metal has to make good contact! Then, after all of that, you clean the solder and protect your piece from oxidation (that other dirt) with flux, which creates an oxygen barrier over the metal being “soldered.”
So, why are you having such a hard time soldering my stuff together?
It isn’t making a good connection and/or it isn’t clean. That’s it.
News of late
My oh my, news of late. By the time you get this, I’m “on vacation,” and paddle boarding (hopefully) somewhere on Lake George in NY. (or maybe grilling and having wine?)
Oh how boring! So you’re saying your online shop is “closed”? Yep. Or more appropriately, I’m not making new stuff or shipping anything ordered out to people, which probably isn’t any issue seeing as how I don’t have much to sell yet.
Here’s the rub. I don’t mean a nice dry rub on those ribs I may or may not be grilling either. I mean, my initial choice for a website store provider isn’t working out. Yeah, I used to be a web developer for 17 years. I could probably work through it all. I don’t want to do that anymore. Sure, sure, I don’t mind a tweak here or there. That’s fine. But when I can’t drag and drop images easily to place in and around my blog posts, that’s just downright annoying! Or God forbid, I want to remove an image I uploaded to use and there isn’t any way to delete it from the system? Hell no!
So, I’m going to end up working, trying out one or maybe even two alternate online shopping providers. I won’t say which ones (unless they want to hand me some money. I don’t have enough newsletter subscribers for that yet – though you all could help with that if you want by sending friends here!)
So maybe a bit less vacation-y than I wanted. Yeah, that’s what I’m working on right now.
I’ll write about the dentist drill from the early 1900s next time?
In the Works
You’d think I’d have a ton of time to create stuff. The sad reality is that I have all these other things going on and damn it, they take a ton of time (see above about new website junk.)
I do have a few things going on. I had someone ask if I could make them a pendant version of the knot I designed during my first Open Studio night at Generator VT, so I’ll be working on that.
In addition to that, I have the old dentist drill put back in service. I use that for carving the charcoal I cast with. It’s easier to manage because I can hold it like a pen, and the carvings seem to come out cleaner. Maybe because it turns slower than other stuff? I’m not really sure. I’m actually hoping to make enough money to buy a modern battery operated handheld dentist drill or something that looks and functions like one. That’s a ways away at this point. In any case, I’m going to make 1-2 more Galdr Stav amulets in the coming weeks.
All in all, I should have 2-4 more things to post for sale by the end of August. Hopefully I’ll have switched over to a new online store provider by then as well, because I want to be spending 60-70% of my time making stuff and only 30-40% bookkeeping, blogging, and shipping stuff. That’s the goal anyway.
Until next time,
Justin