In Solder We Trust

Metal Smith Society is a community on Instagram that has over 240,000 individuals , from professional jewelers to small business artisans , hobbyists , students and even those curious , lucky lose eager to learn about jewelry making . Together we share tips , kindness and support .

In this podcast , I will discuss tips from the Instagram page , provide deeper insights , address questions and share bonus tips that often surface in the comments section . So , whether you've been making jewelry for a while or you're just starting your jewelry making journey , this podcast is your go-to resource for all the jewelry making tips .

So grab your tools , dust off your workbench and join me In today's episode . I will be discussing soldering tips First , how you can use potatoes and pennies as soldering props , but I'll explain why you can't just use any penny in a few . Before I get into today's episode , I'm so excited to tell you about my Sandgren clogs .

They have become my favorite footwear in my studio . They're comfortable and super cute . You can get them in silver and gold . I mean , come on . Every single pair of clogs is made by hand in Sweden , each pair taking 24 hours to make with skilled hands and years of experience and knowledge as makers .

I'm sure we can all appreciate that Sandgren is offering our community 10% off your order when you use code Corky that's code CORKIE at checkout to save 10% .

This first tip I'm going to share today really excites me , because it's actually a part of the origin story of how I came to start Metals mith Society . So let me back up a little bit and tell you about that . It was 2017 .

I was heavily pregnant with my son , Dean , and I was working on a custom job , and , without getting into all the details , let's just say that I had an opal that was already set , and said opal became detached from this piece , which was a major problem , and so what I did was I reached out to an old coworker of mine and I asked her what to do .

I was a little panicked and I just wanted to see if there was any way to salvage the situation without having to remake the entire piece , and what she told me was go to the store , get a potato , carve out an area for the opal to sit , sandwiched in between two pieces of potato , and then , with the appropriate solder and heat , get in there , solder it back

on , get out as fast as you can . And what can I say ? It worked . Now , I have to give this caveat anytime this is mentioned . This is not always going to work . It really depends on your torch , the situation , the size of the stone , how long you have to heat it for , but sometimes , in a last-ditch effort , this tip works .

And so back in 2019 , make it With . Kim shared the potato tip , and in it she not only talks about the potato being used to heat , protect a gemstone , but also how you can use it to position your work . For example , you could perhaps position two rings and make a split shank , soldering the back , just by sort of shoving them into the potato .

For our beginners , I think it's important to get into why the potato works . Or an apple Some people have also used an apple . With some stones most stones you cannot solder jewelry around them because the heat will destroy the stone , and so it is not advised that you solder upon a piece where you've already set stones , especially more fragile stones .

You can solder around diamonds .

With experience and following , you know certain rules , but generally let's just say for the beginner's sake , you don't want to be soldering when they're stones , but sometimes something might occur where you know a piece falls off a ring or maybe you need to resize a ring shank , and so this is when , okay , if you're resizing a ring shank , you could possibly cover

the entire front half of the ring , with just the back of the ring sticking out of the potato , and resize it without doing harm to the stone . But that's generally what this tip is about . In the comments section , there was a lot of love , a lot of appreciation .

There was a lot of love and appreciation for potatoes in general , both eating them and the smell of them when you burn them . So I found that quite amusing and you know this will continue to be a tip that I will use

over the years . The next community tip I want to talk about was shared back in 2020 by the alchemist . What they did was they took their white solderite board which I'll tell you a little bit more about those in a moment and they used a pencil and Sharpie to draw lines on it as a grid .

What this grid does is it gives you a visual to keep things aligned while you're soldering . They also took it a step further and they drew areas for different solder . For example , one area was marked easy , the other medium and the other hard .

Now this is something that I have done for years , because if you have little chips of solder everywhere , they kind of become mystery solder , but if you keep them on a board in a little area , it's a great way to keep track of what's what . Now let's talk a little bit about what a solderite board is .

If you're unfamiliar , white boards are made of calcium silicate and these boards are more dense so they don't break easily or flake . I find mine rapidly cools so it can be good for soldering smaller elements that I don't want to melt . I don't find myself using it for soldering large things .

For the most part I prefer honeycomb or charcoal for that , because charcoal and honeycomb are more heat reflective surfaces . The other nice thing about solderite is you can stick pins into it and even prongs . Some are a little bit harder to stick prongs directly into . You almost need to pre-drill a little hole , but they can be great for positioning work .

I have also seen this same tip used on honeycomb boards . I think it would be hard to see on a charcoal block , but you can take your honeycomb board and draw lines on it as well if you want that visual for keeping things aligned .

The next tip I'm going to talk about is how you can use a penny as a soldering prop , and this one came from KKB Metal Studio . So the important thing with this tip is that back in 1982 , pennies were manufactured as copper plated zinc . So if you find pennies that are prior to 1982 , they are copper and they are a fantastic prop for soldering .

You can use them to lift work a little bit to get a bail into the right position . They can be used in a wide variety of ways . A lot of people keep a stack of them around and , as suggested by KKB Metal Studio , once they get super yucky you can just pickle them .

One consideration with pennies is that you do want to make sure that you don't solder your work to the penny . And another topic that comes up around soldering props is titanium is also a fantastic material for soldering prop . And , same thing , you can find titanium strips and you can stack them and use those as well .

So next time you find a penny on the ground , check out what year it is and if you're before 1982 , be sure to save it and bring it over to your soldering station . The comments section also talked about sort of the mess that happens if it is a penny , that's , you know , copper-plated tink . Apparently it becomes a big hot mess on your desk .

So don't do that . But yeah , I love this tip because it's an everyday item that you know most of us have .

The last tip I wanna talk about today is a video I created with a product I really love . It's called the T-Quad Soldering Stand and it's by Lion Punch Forge . What it is and I'll link it in the show notes is it's a little mini stand .

It's only a few inches tall and it's made out of titanium , so it's very durable and it's designed for soldering jewelry components like hollow forms , bezels , and you can even like enamel with it torch , fire enamel and it was just created by Chris to make some of those soldering jobs a little bit easier .

I have especially been loving using it for when I have to solder a bezel onto a back plate , because the stand lifts your work up without being a heat sink and allows you to heat from below . So be sure to check it out .

I've really been enjoying giving these podcast episodes fun little names . Today's episode is called In Soder We Trust , and this was actually a slogan that was on one of our first ever limited edition t-shirt designs back in 2019 . So , for those that don't know , every year I hire a different artist to create a fresh design just for our community .

You can find all of those items over at metalsmithsociety . com , including a framed print of the In Solder We Trust design that was available back in 2019 . You can't get it on a shirt anymore , but you can find it as a framed print for your studio wall . All purchases made at metalsmithsociety .

com help support me running the Instagram page , creating this podcast , keeping resources and blog articles up to date . So I appreciate you looking and thank you so much for the support . Thanks for tuning in and I will talk to you next time . Bye .