Hi,

This week I thought I would continue our discussion and talk about solder. This is one area that was super confusing for me when I first started and I now, 3 years later, I finally feel like I have my head wrapped around it so I thought I would share:

Solder is basically metal glue. You use it to create a connection between two pieces of metal or a connection from one end of some wire to another. Solder is essentially an low melting alloy made up of different kinds of metal for example: silver solder contains: 65% fine silver. 20% copper. and 15% zinc.

Alloys are designed to:

melt and flow at a specific temperature or temperature range below the melting point (solidus) of the metal,
fill a specific joint gap design,
join a variety of metals,
to provide an engineered joint.

Solder is available in different forms and at different melting points.

Forms of Solder:

You can purchase solder as wire, sheet, pre-cut chips, liquid paste or even inside silver wire. Each form of solder does the same thing so the deciding factor will be based on personal preference. I’ll share my experiences and you can choose, I’d also love to hear your thoughts so please feel free to leave me a comment.

Wire solder: needs to be flattened on one end and then cut.

Cons: It looks like regular silver wire and gets very hard when hammered so I find it difficult and unpleasant to cut.

Sheet solder: Looks like sheet metal but you can color code it with sharpie which reduces oxidation and makes it easy to identify. It needs to be cut into chips which is easily done by first cutting a fringe on one side of the sheet and then cutting that fringe into smaller squares. Pro tip: use tiny extra sharp scissors for easy cutting. These beading scissors are my personal favorite (https://bit.ly/2Dd9tkE).

Cons: I haven’t found any, I prefer this form of solder as it’s easy to cut into any size you need and easy to mark for identification.

Pre-cut chips: these are the sheet solder already cut for you.

Cons: The chips are already cut so you can’t chose the size you want. They’re generally tiny so you also cannot easily mark them with sharpie.

Liquid and paste solder: this is flux and solder mixed together. It’s a very speedy and efficient way to solder especially if you have a production line.

Cons: can dry out easily and you need a special chemical to re-hydrate. Not too easy to clean your brush of this either. I am still earning how to use this and haven’t quite figured it out yet but it came highly recommended so I will keep you informed if I figure it out.

Solder inside silver wire: this is the best if you are making your own jump rings.

Cons: comes in limited gauges of wire and cannot be used for many things.

But that’s not the confusing part. The part that really flummoxed me is that different solder comes with different melting points. And these are chosen depending on your project. The breakdown goes like this: wire solder, sheet solder and liquid solder can all come in extra easy, easy, medium, hard and extra hard.

You need to spend some time planning out your project first, deciding and then selecting which solder will be best for which step in your project.

When assembling, start with your highest melting point solder. As you assemble each piece, use a lower temperature solder. The chart below describes the uses for and flow temperatures of four standard types of solder.

Let me know what experience you ave with different types of solder or if you have questions. Just drop me a comment below. I’d love to hear from you.

You can also read my other blogs here.

Getting Started Soldering - Solder