View Single Post
  #19  
Old 07-31-2010, 01:54 PM
hand e dave hand e dave is offline
Gold
 
Join Date: May 2010
Location: Edmonton, Canada
Posts: 106
Default Re: Looking for help from Jewelers. Repair gone bad!!

Hi Turtle, Yup, I know you posted this many months back, but I have a couple of suggestions. First, unless you have really deep pockets and can afford some of the suggestions from others, do yourself a favour and buy a $30-$45 torch kit. 2 bottles, one oxygen and one propane, a small handpiece, and two regulators. You adjust the small flame using the regulators attached to the bottles. By using oxygen and propane, you can get a very fine hot flame. Well worth the money.


Second, sorry to say, but when silver soldering sterling silver, the entire piece must be heated. That cool stuff you mentioned won't work on sterling, only gold. Gold can be soldered at the joint, without having to heat the entire piece up. Sounds strange, but sterling is harder to solder than gold.


That said, my policy, when I made a living making jewellery, was that I only repaired MY OWN WORK. It'll save you alot of heartache and frustration. Yup, I know it was for a friend, but it was a hard lesson to learn.

I hope the pics help you out a bit. All the best. Dave.
Attached Images
File Type: jpg inexpensive torch kit.jpg (52.4 KB, 20 views)
File Type: jpg propane : oxygen.jpg (136.9 KB, 16 views)
Reply With Quote