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Meet the Couple Photos: Elements of Our Wedding: Outline Logistics: Registry |
Preparing the Soldering Station With the pickle hot and ready to go, I began preparing the soldering station. This consisted of a good metal lab table with plenty of ventilation. You can do this work outside if there is no forced air ventilation in your shop. This station is already set up for light torch work, so it worked out very well. The platform for performing the work was constructed out of firebrick, a ceramic material that resists and reflects heat very well. This would serve to insulate the surroundings from the heat, as well as avoid sucking heat out of the rings where they lay. It is crucial that the rings not have cold spots while soldering, as solder would not flow on cold metal.  The gold solder I used was in the form of 1mm thick wire, medium grade. Medium refers to the melting point - the 'harder' the solder, the higher the melting point. When making jewelry or other pieces with multiple soldering steps, be sure to use harder grades first, then move on to easier grades. Don't EVER use the ultra-easy grades, as those often contain lead or cadmium, which can do three bad things: This last point is important! If something ever breaks and a jeweler needs to repair it, he/she will find that the piece falls apart upon heating it! What's worse, the ultra-easy solder doesn't go away - it either has to be ground away or just dealt with. My suggestion is that if you are doing a single operation job, use medium for ease of melting. If you have multiple steps, start with hard and move down to medium, and then easy only if you have to.
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