Silver Soldering Copper Sheet

Silver solder can be used to join most common metals including mild steel stainless steel copper brass cast iron and dissimilar metals.

Silver soldering copper sheet.

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. Make sure the area that is covered is roughly the same as the size of your silver 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. Insert the pipe into the fitting.

The melting point of copper cu alloy uns c12200 is 1 981 f 1082 c. Copper tubing typically comes in 3 4 inch and 1 2 inch diameters. 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. Light the torch and heat the fitting evenly.

As such the filler metals for soldering and brazing copper and copper alloy tube and fittings must have melting temperatures below this temperature. More on this later. 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. Originally published in lapidary.

Melt some solder onto the non steel metal if you re using one. Continue heating the joint for a few seconds. Even though copper and brass solders wire and paste do exist they re not always on hand. If it begins to melt continue applying solder around the entire joint.

The tubes are cut with a tubing cutter and the joints are connected by soldering them together with silver solder. This gives the steel a surface to bind to. Here s a great trick for making perfectly invisible seams and hiding the solder when soldering copper with silver solder. Place your silver sheet to one side and apply a small amount of flux to the top side of your copper sheet.

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. The basic difference between soldering and brazing is the temperature necessary to melt the filler metal. If you re binding a different metal to the steel like copper or tin pre treat the surface by melting some solder onto it.