How to Make Soldered Jewelry, Episode #2 - Sweat Soldering

 

hey there I'm Lisa Niven Kelly for

Beaducation.com and welcome to the

first project episode in our

introduction to soldering series now if

you haven't watched the very first

episode that's where we talk about tools

and materials and we really get into it

so make sure you check that out before

this one but in this one we're going to

talk about Sweat soldering and that is

when you take two flat pieces of metal

and solder them together in that first

episode we talked about the golden rules

of soldering and one major golden rule

is to make sure that your metals are

totally touching the solder will only

connect where it's touching and because

of that in this episode we also talked

about annealing and annealing is when

your metals really hard hit it with the

torch like I'm going to show you and it

relaxes it now the reason I put those

two together is because in this class

when we go to put the two pieces

together one is a little bit warped so

you have to flatten it and it was pretty

hard and I couldn't get it to flatten so

I kneeled the metal and then it easily

flattened so I'm gonna talk about Sweatt

soldering we're gonna talk about a

kneeling but the first thing we're gonna

do is just flow solder we're not gonna

solder anything together we're just

going to put some solder on some copper

and see what it feels like and what it

looks like to just get it up to

temperature and let it flow

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we're gonna practice just flowing the

solder and throughout these lessons

we're going to be using a spray on flex

but I thought for fun I'd show you the

Handy flux which comes on more like a

paste mine is kind of old so it's really

thick but you can water it down and

apply it with a brush or with this for

this I'm just going to put it on a small

amount of area and then I'm going to

apply replace my little payin Boop and

then we're just going to melt that and

see what it looks like just flowing

so again this is something I want you to

do over and over again just to get a

feel for how hot it needs to be my flame

is about two inches above the piece and

I'm just hitting the outside and there

is the flux it's going to turn a little

glassy just hit the outside of the metal

because the heat will travel in it's

gonna flow pretty soon

starting to go and see that

yes

you can see how quickly it flows and

this will all depend on you know the how

how you have your flame how thick your

metal is and this is really interesting

because you can see the bright copper

color that's where the flux was because

it protected it from the copper oxides

coming up and it kept it nice copper

color and the outside got the the fire

scale which is very easy to clean up in

the pickle here's some fun pieces that

have been sweat soldered this is just a

basic sterling stamped piece that we

soldered a little brass heart on so cute

this is a copper piece we have the

initials and then the middle s there is

brass it's been soldered on and actually

was a charm we cut the top off of it and

filed it off just to use it as a

singular s it's kind of cute and on this

one we used the sterling silver circle

in the back and then copper heart

sterling k so you could solder the

copper heart on first clean it start all

over again - then put the K on in two

steps with two different flow Sauter's

but on this one I actually used medium

solder laid it between the copper heart

and the sterling doc and then laid the

cave right on top of it with medium

solder everything stayed really well and

I just soldered it all at once it worked

out great okay so here's my plan on this

beautiful little stamped circle I am up

to solder this heart right in the middle

it's a crazy reflection there but they

need to be flat so that they can get a

good join you can see they don't touch

because this guy is pretty warped it not

happens when you stamp especially around

the outside so all you need to do is

flatten it sometimes you need to anneal

it to get the metal to really flatten

but I'm hoping that I can just use my

plastic mallet or a rawhide mallet and

Hammer it too flat so you need to make

sure that your bench box bench block is

super clean and smooth with no nicks in

it mine is very clean it's just got a

little rust but that doesn't matter so I

could just flip it down and hit with the

plastic mallet because this is clean but

if you're worried about your bench block

grab like a thin piece of fabric or I

just have some leather here

and you can put it on that to make sure

you don't scratch up your piece now

you're gonna have an easier time

flattening it by facing the edges down

this way then rather rather than having

them point up like that that makes sense

so I'm just going to flip it down and

hit it a bunch of times now because this

is sterling it's a pretty hard metal I'm

not really able to get it very flat I

could keep trying but I actually want to

show you annealing so we don't leave it

at that if I was able to get it flat and

get this flat we could move straight on

to soldering but instead let me teach

you how to kneel this metal to soften it

so that then when I try to flatten it

again it'll easily easily flatten to

anneal this metal these are the tools

and all the goodies that you need from

your soldering list that we talked about

in the first lesson and the only reason

we've got our Cooper nail here which is

a flux is not because we need it to help

our solder flow so we're not soldering

just yet but by spraying it on this

piece before we Emil it's going to help

protect it from the fire scale so really

what it means is it's going to be less

cleaning after we anneal this piece on

this one I am going to use the flux that

we talked about to keep it from getting

too much fire scale but I'm not gonna do

it on this one just so you can see the

difference cool

so I'm gonna turn on my flame I've got

my goggles on maybe I'm not go

and I want my flame let me come in here

you can't see really well but I've got

it a little pullback I don't have it

full max you can tell by the sound or

I'll show you the button as well I don't

have it turned all the way up there I

have it pulled back a little bit so it's

not like a crazy big flame I want a

neutral flame and to add the Cooper nail

I'm just going to get a little bit warm

maybe I'll do the other side as well

see how it's already changing colors

pulling those copper oxides up to the

surface

so I'm going to come in with my flame

and again because of the contrast you

can't really see it but see how it's

changing colors here and it's starting

again

all this kind of pinky salmony color you

don't want to come into your clothes

just come around around you want to be

very deliberate and very patient and

maybe we're done there now I'm gonna do

this guy and I'm kind of covering it

with the torch

so long

I'm gonna get it pretty warm but not red

mmm that looks good

okay gonna quench it and do the same at

this guy I'm gonna street him to the

edge so I can grab it out of frame sorry

and you'll hear the crunch sound yeah

alright so let me take them out and show

you so now I'm gonna put it in the

pickle to clean it up I or hit it with a

bunch of penny bright and then we'll

come back and flatten it again I just

grabbed these out of the pickle pot and

they will come out looking like this

kind of matte kind of white chalky

that's cuz it's all clean the copper

oxides are gone the silvers come to the

surface and I'm not gonna polish it I'm

gonna leave it just like that

now flatten it and then I can solder it

cuz it's all clean so don't polish it

just leave it exactly like this let's

see the heart is already pretty flat I

probably don't need to flatten it but

I'm gonna leave the design face up and

just give it a couple whacks just to

make sure all right now with this guy

instead of flipping it over I'm just

gonna hit it from the front because it's

super annealed so it's very soft

everybody should go flat without any

issue there we go

before I go ahead and solder this I

wanted to show you that this is what

you're looking for a nice and flat flat

flat against each other it's just like

we talked about when we introduced you

to sheet solder we're going to cut these

little pieces of grass probably got a

little longer and then we're gonna cut

our own little pal Ian's here and then

drop them into your little jar to keep

them

so we've got them right there in our

little jar let's pull them out as we

need them here's how I'm gonna do this

I'm gonna first come in with my torch

and lightly heat this these two pieces

are 24 gauge they're pretty thin light

the heat spray with Cooper nil and get

it all nice and coated and I'm going to

turn my torch off and then place

everything in place then turn it back on

and solder

trying to get that all nice and coated

I'm actually just gonna use one palying

because I cut this guy kind of big and

it's kind of perfect

so I'm now gonna take my heart put it

upside down try to get it nice and

centered right where I want it I just

make sure that it's right exactly where

I want it and the cool thing is here the

PAL unit has it kind of lifted you can't

really see if there's a gap over here

but when it's otters the heart will drop

like and that is what I'm now that it is

all soldered

this is where patience comes in slowly

going to heat the outside

I'm not going to concentrate my flame

right in the middle I'm just going to

let the heat flow in from the outside

very patient my flex will protect it

I'm a little hotter and it's probably

gonna drop pretty soon I can see it

coming up to red and you see that drop

right there I'm just gonna give it a

little bit of a kiss around the outside

okay I realize you couldn't see the drop

because the purchase of the lace so it

set up just another sample here about my

torch on anything sliced and I'm healing

around the edge

and he will travel in from the edge and

not trying to write on the top

gettin up to temperature and see a drop

right there

other sites to go

the edge that's what we're looking for

so we just pulled it out of the pickle

pot and there's that kind of white

frosty finish that we talked about at

this point I'm going to go ahead and

oxidize it and then polish it up to

leave the black in the grooves to show

the detail the stamping I'm going to do

that instead of polishing it then

oxidize some polishing again so you can

oxidize with your oxidation of choice

whether you moxa dyes with Sharpie pen

or enamel paint or liver sulfur or

hydrochloric acid whichever you prefer

I'm gonna go ahead off-camera and

oxidize polish punch a hole and bring it

on back and you're gonna see this beauty

I am also gonna file that because it's

making me crazy a little bump right

there look at this not too scary you

guys can do this it's all nice and

soldered I have oxidized and polished it

so my hands are all dirty and hung it

from my favorite popcorn chain so it's

your turn what do you say let's go fire

at those torches and make yourself a

nice sweat soldered pendant

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