Workbench Guide to Jewelry Techniques

 ANAST  ANAS TASIA YOUNG YOUNG

  THE WORKBENCH GUIDE TO

Annealing • Soldering

Technique finder Core techniques (pages 82–108)

• Cutting and piercing • Drilling • Filing • Annealing   Soldering      ▼

• Pickling • Bending metal • Cleaning up • Polishing Construction (pages 109–119)

Forming techniques (pages 120–149)

Carving and casting (pages 150–168)

Mechanisms (pages 169–189)

Color and texture (pages 190–234)

Stone setting (pages 235–247)

Stringing beads (pages 248–251)

Outwork (pages 252–269)

Metals are most often joined together using the soldering process. Solder is a metal alloy with a lower melting point than the metals it is joining; precious metals each have their own solder alloy, but base metals are usually joined with silver solder.

SOLDERING Materials and tools

Solder is available in different grades—hard silver solder has a melting point just below that of silver, medium has a lower melting point, and easy solder melts at a lower point still. Hard solder is used predominantly, as it color-matches silver better than medium or easy, and flows along seams better, too. Enameling solder has a very high melting point and can be used to join elements that are going to be enameled (see page 229); extra-easy solder should only be used for repair work. Every karat and color of gold has its own solder alloys of hard, medium, and easy. Flux is used to aid solder flow by preventing the metal from oxidizing when heated. Borax is

a good general-purpose flux, and comes either as a solid cone that is mixed with water in a dish to form a thin paste, or as a powder. Soldering gold requires relatively high temperatures, and you may get better results using a flux especially for that purpose, instead of borax. Easy and extra-easy solders, and stainless steel will also perform better with a flux designed for the specific purpose. Heat-bricks, charcoal blocks, and soldering mats, including ceramic mats that have holes for pinning pieces in position with binding wire, are necessary to protect surfaces from torch flames. Mats can be used on a turntable, which  will allow the piece to be rotated while heating takes place. Small, inexpensive hand-torches are useful, but only for small soldering jobs such as chainmaking. Torch heads that automatically mix air and bottled propane or butane gas are easy to use, and are a worthwhile investment. You can interchange different sizes of head attachment to give suitable flame sizes for most soldering jobs.

Plant cell brooch By Laura Baxter  The intricate silver and  gold ele ments of th is brooch were skillfully soldered together.

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Tech chni niqu ques es • Cor Core e te tech chni niq que uess

ANNEALING METAL Annealing is the process used to soften metal once it has become work-hardened. These steps show the annealing of metal wire, rod, and sheet. Lengths of wire should be coiled and loosely bound with binding wire, which will help to prevent overheating any areas. Use a soft, bushy flame to heat the coil evenly until it reaches annealing temperature.

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Precious Kiwiskin necklace By Alena Joy  Precious metals were used alongside dried kiwi skins to construct this delicate necklace.

1 To anneal anneal thick wire or

rod, angle the torch flame along the length of the rod, and start heating at one end (or, as shown here, at one edge of the loop). When the end becomes a dull red color, move the flame along the rod, making sure that the whole length or loop has reached annealing temperature temperature.. 2 Anneal sheet metal with a

bushy flame—circulate the flame to bring the whole piece of sheet to a dull red color.

3 Allow silver to cool to

black-heat before quenching in water. Allow larger pieces of sheet to air cool, which

on a heatproof mat and start heating, using a soft, bushy flame—you will soon see color changes on the surface of the metal, and once the metal starts to glow red (check the chart for particular metals and their annealing color) stop heating. These color changes are most visible in low light levels. The method you use to cool the metal  will affect its temper (hardnes (hardness)—in s)—in order to achieve optimum results, use the recommended method of quenching or cooling for your particular metal. The annealing process causes a coating of oxides to be formed on most metals, and they  will need to be cleaned cleaned in an acid solution called pickle (see page 98).

will prevent distortion from rapid cooling.

When not to anneal For certain tasks, such as making earring wires  where no soldering is required, it is often desirable to retain the hardness of the metal so that the piece will not easily bend out of shape. The piece will be less easily formed, but will be a more durable structure.

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Techniques • Core techniques

SWEAT SOLDERING A HOLLOW FORM Hollow forms can be awkward to solder, as there is often no place for pallions of solder to be placed easily. Sweat soldering allows you to melt solder accurately in position. Here, two domed circles are soldered together to make a spherical form.

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1 Apply borax and plenty

of pallions of solder to the flat edge of one dome.

2 Heat the dome until the

solder slumps—overheating may cause the solder to run down into the concave surface. Ensure that all of the edge of the dome has solder on.

3 Don’t pickle the soldered

half—but you may lightly rub the soldered surface with emery paper to flatten it if necessary. Flux the two halves and bind them together with binding wire.

4 Heat the form evenly to

bring it all up to temperature at the same ti me. You You will see liquid solder appear along the seam—ensure that this has happened all the way around the seam, and then stop heating the piece.

visible around the edge of the seam. Remember to make an air-hole in a hollow form if it is going to be heated again—trapped air can make pieces explode. This technique technique can also be used to join flat sheets of metal together neatly. Awkward soldering jobs Confidence in soldering comes with practice.  When things don don’’t go as planned, try to work out why—mistakes can be learned from and the knowledge used to your advantage. Each soldering job may be slightly different than the last, but a few general points should be taken into consideration. • Build a wall from soldering mats or bricks around the soldering area, because this will help to reflect heat back onto the piece, which will help it heat up more quickly. • Time spent setting up pieces is time saved if the elements move when they are being heated and need to be quenched, repositioned, and fluxed again. • Always try to use gravity to your advantage when whe n balancing pieces—reverse-action tweezers are a great help here, but remember that they will draw heat out of the metal they are holding, and so it  will take longer longer to reach reach the correct correct temperature. temperature. This fact is useful when you are soldering thin  wire on to larger forms—using tweezers will help prevent the wire from overheating. • Binding wire is incredibly useful for holding pieces in place, but it can cause damage—silver expands more than binding wire when heated, so make sure you use thin enough wire that will not resist expansion. Multiple joins  While it is possible to use hard solder only to solder multiple joins within one piece, medium and easy solder are often used for the final seams. This means that the piece will not have to be heated to such a high temperature for the solder to melt, and so there is much less risk of the hard solder re-melting. In a piece with three solder joins, the first should be made with hard solder, the second with medium, and the final  join with easy solder. For pieces with more than three joins, hard solder should be used for as

Soldering

Clockwise from top: Petals rings by Rui Kikuchi; Ping ring by Gilly Langton; Ring by Margareth Sandstrom; “5R1” Ring by Anastasia Young.

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Techniques • Core techniques

SOLDERING AN EARRING STUD  Thin wires soldered so ldered on to larger forms, such as pins for earring studs, can be a challenging soldering job. The trick is to avoid overheating the wire. The setup of the pieces is crucial— try to use gravity to your advantage!

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1 Hold the rod in place using

The different types of solder

pins in the soldering mat, and

Silver solder is available in different t ypes;

balance the wire in position

hard, medium, and easy solder strips are shown above.

using insulated tweezers. Apply borax to both parts and place a pallion of hard solder so that it is resting on the rod, and touching the wire, too. 2 Heat the soldering mat first, to allow the borax to dry out slowly. Once you are sure that the solder will not move, start to heat the rod, which is thicker than the wire and will take more time to get up to soldering temperature. 3 As soon as the rod is glowing dark red, allow the flame to “lick” the wire while continuing to heat the rod. Don’t allow the wire to get too hot, or the solder will travel up the wire,

many of the initial joins as necessary, and the  joins masked off with rouge powder mixed to a paste with water after they are made. This  will help to keep the solder from melting again. Heat-resistant gel can also be used to protect solder seams, thin areas that may be at risk of overheating, and gemstones. Easy solder should only ever be used for the final solder join in a piece as it can melt holes in silver if it is overheated. Solder seams can become “dry” from overheating or too much annealing. This can cause pin-holes along the seam. Every time solder is heated, some components will burn out of the alloy, which effectively gives the solder a higher melting point and it will require heating to a higher temperature in order to get it to melt. If necessary, run fresh solder along the same seam to reinforce it.

away from the rod.

4 When the solder melts and joins the two parts, remove the flame. Quench and pickle the piece.

Mixed metals  When soldering gold to silver silver,, it is necessary to use silver solder, regardless of the karat of the gold. This is because silver has a lower melting point than that of gold solder. Take care not to overheat the gold during this process or any subsequent heating because the silver solder can melt pits in the surface of the gold. Base metals, including steel, can be soldered to silver using borax for the flux and silver solder.

Soldering

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MULTIPLE SOLDER JOINS IN ONE PIECE  This technique demonstrates how to use the three main grades of silver solder—hard, medium, and easy—when soldering a piece that has several different solder joins in it.

1 Form a ring shank from

2 True the bezel on a triblet

3 Pierce out the bezel cup from

4 Place the bezel cup upside-

9-gauge (3-mm) round silver

and rub the base on emery

the surrounding sheet and

down on the soldering mat

wire (see page 112). Use

paper to ensure it is flat.

carefully file the base flush with

and balance the ring shank on

26-gauge (0.4-mm) fine silver

Place the bezel on a piece of

the sides. Use emery sticks to

top. Support the shank using

sheet to make a bezel that

22-gauge (0.6 mm) silver sheet,

clean up the outer surfaces.

tweezers. Flux around the join

fits around a cabochon stone.

flux, and place medium solder

File a flat area on the top of

and apply several pallions of

Solder the ring shank and bezel

pallions around the outside of

the ring shank, in the same

easy solder. When soldering,

using hard solder. Pickle and

the bezel. Solder the wire on

position as the hard solder join.

concentrate the heat mainly on

clean up both pieces.

mesh, so that the flame can be

 The bezel cup should be a bit

the shank. Pickle and clean up.

applied from underneath to

larger than the flat surface.

See page 236, for Bezel setting,

avoid overheating the bezel.

where this project is continued.

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SOLDERING MIXED METALS When soldering mixed metals, always consider the melting points of the component parts, and use a solder and flux suitable for the metal with the lower melting point.

1 Solder an 18-karat yellow-gold

2 Use borax to flux the silver

3 Place the piece on steel mesh

4 Clean off any excess silver

wire ring with 18-karat yellow-

base sheet and position the

so that the silver can be heated

solder with a needlefile and then

gold hard solder, using Auroflux.

gold ring. Apply hard silver

from underneath. The solder will

refine the surface further with

Pickle, clean up the join, and

solder pallions around the

melt when the silver reaches the

emery sticks.

true the form.

outside of the gold ring.

correct temperature. The gold solder should not be affected.

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The Workbench Guide to Jewelry Techniques Techniques  covers traditional

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Anastasia Young is a practicing designer, jeweler, and

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