Saturday, August 29, 2020
9am to 4pm with one hour off for lunch.
 
This is a fundamental class for the fields of jewelry making and metalsmithing.
This is where you will learn about the class of “hard solders,” that is, silver solders that “flow” (melt) between 1325°F and 1490°F which is just barely lower than the melting point of sterling silver’s 1640°F.
In this class, you will learn five basic necessities to achieve a good, high-quality solder seam or joint:
1) The surfaces to be soldered must fit well with the least bit of a gap;
2) The surfaces to be joined must be clean of all oxidation and contaminants;
3) The surfaces to be joined must be adequately fluxed while under the torch’s flame. Heated flux turns into an impenetrable “glass” barrier that keeps oxygen from contacting the metal surfaces while the solder flows through the flux and fuses to the metal;
4) That solder will instantly fuse to the metal that has obtained the temperature above the melting point of the selected solder;
5) And that all surfaces to be soldered must arrive to the temperature above the melting point of the solder simultaneously, or the solder will “jump” to the surface that has arrived to that temperature first.
We will learn to use a variety of soldering torches, and how to use appropriate flames from those torches for soldering, brazing and annealing metal.
Although this class is aimed at beginners and therefore has no prerequisite classes, it is an excellent class to take after having taken the “Making Chains by Hand” class enabling you to solder the chain links in the chain you made, and/or the “Making a Coin Ring” class giving you an opportunity to do something more creative with the coin ring(s) you made.