Heather Coleman wrote in message ...
Hi :-)
This is Heather in England, been on this group a few times in the past
with a few questions... here's a new one.
I am mainly working with gold at the moment and wondered if there's a
way I can create my own solder's using the filings I get rather than
spending money buying fresh material.?
I work with 9ct gold, 18ct and 22-24ct gold which includes bullion.
I understand there are different grades you can make so that you can
carry out soldering in one phase and then add another group of features
soldering with a different grade... and then repeat again... is this so?
Is this complicatied?
Is there a basic easy solder recipe for using up 9ct gold scraps.
Regards
Heather

Hi, Heather:

You can make a reasonable solder for just about any carat yellow gold
by mixing it with 10-20% by weight hard silver solder, melt it (mix
thoroughly), make a bead and roll it out thin. This will give you a
solder with similar working properties to the equivalent "hard solder"
for that karat gold that you would get from a supplier. But since you
are in the UK, please note that this is NOT a "plumb solder" -- use
much of it in a piece, and you are likely undercarating and may not
pass the assay requirments! I've done it a couple times for repairs,
mostly, and once to make 22kt solder when I needed some real quick
over a weekend.

If you can find an old book, "Jewelery Workshop Techniques" in a big
library, there are a bunch of solder formulas in it.

However, all that said, you are much better off buying solder from a
good supplier, as you will get known karatage, melting points, color,
and working properties. It's really not worth it to recycle your
scrap as solder, IMO. Better to use it in your next cast, or melt it
down and make sheet/wire, or just send it to the refiners.

Regards,

Bob Edwards
Chromis Designs
San Francisco, CA