The Soldering Life

My basement studio has reached a point that I am pretty happy with. I have a basic jewelry-shop set-up down there, lacking only large quantities of precious metals to fashion into whatever I desire. I also found a pair of lightly used speakers for a very good price,


and when they arrived Brian discovered they slide perfectly onto the ends of the brackets that hold up my heating-unit concealing curtain. So, now I can sit down there, happily sanding or polishing away, whilst I listen to my current audiobook*


or my favorite radio station.

Of course, jewelry making, like many other very fun things, requires chemicals and substances that aren't necessarily safe. In the interests of keeping my studio as non-hazardous as possible, I have taken to using things like self-fluxing and pickling solder (to avoid the presence of a pickle pot), and a tiny little propane-fueled torch.

Before attempting to set up this studio, I didn't know such a thing as self-fluxing and pickling solder existed. Naturally, when I found it on the Rio Grande website, I was quite excited. It came in a tube instead of a roll, and my first experiment involving this high-tech substance failed miserably. Luckily, I had anticipated this. One's first projects with new tools fail miserably almost across the board. So, I was not discouraged, and immediately thereafter successfully soldered three bracelets and a necklace in row - which is to say they are completed pieces today. Then I took a jewelry-making break.

In the last weeks, however, I returned to the studio and I began another bracelet. As before, I cut out the pieces, filed them, sanded them, etc. Then I went to solder them together. Since I don't have any ventilation in my basement, processes that produce toxic fumes (soldering and polishing with compounds) must be done outside at the picnic table in our back yard. This isn't ideal, particularly at times of the year when our back yard is wet and mosquito-infested. Although I embarked on my most recent project without the faintest doubt in my soldering abilities, the process once again failed miserably. The solder wouldn't flow or take. The two pieces of my bracelet would fuse only in a very irritatingly imperfect manner. After several attempts, varying slightly in technique, I gave up.

So why wouldn't the solder work all of a sudden? Was I distracted because of the horde of mosquitoes trying to feast on my flesh while I worked? Was I out of practice? Had I applied the wrong amount of solder? I searched all my jewelry-making knowledge for an explanation, and came up with nothing that could help me. Then, I compared this time's problems to the problems I'd had the first time I tried to solder at home, and found them exactly the same. I immediately isolated the key similarity between the failed projects. My first attempt at soldering involved brass and copper. The middle four involved silver. The most recent, brass and copper.

Thinking I was on to something, I looked at the tube of hi-tech solder. It did indeed say "silver solder" - but when I was learning about jewelry-making I had often used the old fashioned kind of silver solder on brass and copper. Still, the more I thought about the problem, the more my failure seemed due to the solder. I grew indignant. Shouldn't they put things like this in the prodect description?

I went back to the Rio Grande website and found the product. I read the description. It said, "Perfect for all non-ferrous metals except aluminum."

I reflected briefly. Then, I clicked the "similar products" link. This immediately introduced me to another self-fluxing and pickling soldering compound, this one "for copper and brass." I added it to my shopping cart.


*I read Jonathon Strange and Mr. Norrell last year, and liked it so much it seemed only logical the revisit it in audiobook form.