Silver Soldering Copper Sheet

The basic difference between soldering and brazing is the temperature necessary to melt the filler metal.

Silver soldering copper sheet.

Continue heating the joint for a few seconds. It is used essentially with silver for jewellery making and silversmithing but can also be used to join together copper gilding metal brass and gold if needs be. Occasionally touch the silver solder to the juncture of the fitting and the pipe. Light the torch and heat the fitting evenly.

More on this later. If it begins to melt continue applying solder around the entire joint. Once the flux is applied you can place the silver sheet on top of the copper sheet ensuring that the solder is face down on the copper sheet. Hardly a week goes by that i don t get asked how to solder copper or other alternative metals like brass and bronze to each other or silver.

The melting point of copper cu alloy uns c12200 is 1 981 f 1082 c. Place your silver sheet to one side and apply a small amount of flux to the top side of your copper sheet. Insert the pipe into the fitting. These are available with either 2 or 5 silver and are used primarily for joining copper to copper where if the metal is clean no flux need be used.

Silver solder can be used to join most common metals including mild steel stainless steel copper brass cast iron and dissimilar metals. Here s a great trick for making perfectly invisible seams and hiding the solder when soldering copper with silver solder. As such the filler metals for soldering and brazing copper and copper alloy tube and fittings must have melting temperatures below this temperature. Heat up the metal with your soldering iron or torch until it s hot enough to melt solder.

Silver soldering is the process of permanently joining two pieces of metal together using heat to melt pieces of silver solder which melt to fill a prepared joint. This gives the steel a surface to bind to. Copper tubing typically comes in 3 4 inch and 1 2 inch diameters. If you re binding a different metal to the steel like copper or tin pre treat the surface by melting some solder onto it.

The tubes are cut with a tubing cutter and the joints are connected by soldering them together with silver solder. Silver soldering also known as hard soldering or silver brazing also has a higher melting point then lead so it is important to heat up the copper brass sufficiently to get the solder to melt into the joint. Originally published in lapidary.