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I recently got a take a chance to play with copper solder, and I Dearest it! This awesome copper solder is 7% phosporous (and 93% copper), which makes it self-fluxing. Information technology flows and melts around the same temperature every bit hard-grade silverish solder, so you can easily solder links, modest bezels, and other basic joins with a butane micro torch.

16-judge copper wire link with 18-gauge copper solder.

Why exercise I love copper solder?

#i: It's piece of cake!

Jewelers take traditionally used silverish solder to solder copper, merely when using silver on copper, you accept to exist very careful and so the silver seam doesn't show. Since the copper solder is 93% copper (making it copper colored, fifty-fifty after you solder with it), I can enjoy the freedom of having my small mistakes invisible to the untrained middle. And information technology's nice that the 7% phosphorous portion makes it self-fluxing, so I don't have to use flux.

#2: It's inexpensive.

Copper solder is about 1/10 the cost of silver solder: silvery solder is around $xl per ounce, simply yous tin go 4 entire ounces of copper solder for effectually $14. I can experiment and practice all day and it only costs me a few dollars worth of materials. I can make affordable copper jewelry, and/or I tin decide to upgrade to sterling silver, after practicing new techniques with copper.

#3: I have everything I need.

I finally bought my own torch last year, just haven't used it a lot yet. I got the Blazer torch kit, so I'd have everything I demand — 2 types of tweezers, a solder choice, and a few unlike soldering surfaces.

Blazer micro torch kit.

How practice you use copper solder?

If you already know how to solder sterling or fine silver, then y'all already know how to solder copper. If you take no soldering feel, or have only used "soft" solder and soldering irons earlier, and so copper solder is an Fantabulous textile to begin with.

So, where practice you begin? At the very minimum, you need:

1. Raw (bare, unplated) copper
2. Copper solder
3. A torch that gets hot enough for the job (all of Rings & Things' torches work fine for this — merely a soldering iron does not become hot enough).
4. A firing surface — I utilize a magnesia soldering block on summit of a ceramic fire block on superlative of an old cookie sail.
5. Something to grab melty-hot metal items. Bank check out the tweezers listed & linked in this kit.

Generally, you'll drop your freshly-soldered particular in a pickle pot or a metal can full of cool water. And at that place are safety considerations … yous don't actually want to grab your wearable or kitchen/craft table on fire, or breathe or splash unknown chemicals, so if you're completely new to soldering, pick up a book like Uncomplicated Soldering, by Kate Ferrant Richbourg, or Soldering Made Simple, by Joe Silvera.

Here is my projection: Simple soldered links, for a bracelet or necklace.

2 links soldered, the adjacent 3 ready to go.

3rd link beingness soldered.

To make my loops, I used band-bending pliers and the big side of Wubbers Extra-Large bail-making pliers to shape some quick links out of sixteen-gauge raw copper wire, and hammered them a bit on my metal cake. So I cut the ends nice and directly with affluent cutters (You know solder doesn't fill gaps, right? And then your spots to be joined need to line up very cleanly … or your solder join is doomed or ugly), laid out a few links, and started soldering.

I soldered the quick mode — torch in one hand, and spool of solder in the other paw. Heat up a link, then touch the solder to the joint, and fwoosh, it flowed. Sometimes a little likewise well, so my solder spots are a little globbier than they technically should be. So now I'thousand actually reading my copy of Kate Ferrant Richbourg's Simple Soldering rather than just merely flipping through and looking at the diagrams. Before long, I hope to popular in the DVD (included with the Simple Soldering volume)!
The tips and techniques in Uncomplicated Soldering are all most silver soldering, but apply just too to copper soldering.

I concluding tip based on questions I received concluding weekend: Do you lot know which office of the flame is hottest? You might recollect it is within the brightest blueish role of the flame, simply it actually the darker space just by the tip of that vivid blue inner cone.

Coming soon…. (at present finished)
Side by side blog, I'll share a technique to add beads (even fragile chaplet!) directly to links earlier soldering them!

~~Polly

Edited December 2021 to update links.

pritchardgingaid.blogspot.com

Source: https://blog.rings-things.com/tag/copper-soldering-tutorial

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