Hello Dawn,

welcome to this forum.
About soldering.....don´t know much about steel but copper is a little bit problematic though it oxidizes so fast. So places to solder have to be very clean (sulfuric acid,etc.) and you got to solder as fast as possible.

Greetings
René

Hi Dawn, I don't have any jewelry experience nor much soldering experience, but I do live in Nebraska so I thought I'd pipe up and say hi and welcome a fellow Midwesterner to Artmetal. I look forward to seeing some of your work.

Jake

Jake Balcom
Mettle Design
Lincoln, NE

Hi there Dawne,

I too am new to the site and what a SITE it is! There are so many Talented people here that it's truly MIND BOGGLING..:)!
Anyway, if you're looking to get into the Non-Ferrous metals, you'll find that there are a GREAT deal of different Solders / Brazing Rod available for the different metals. As for CU, my favourite has got to be 'CopperPhos' (Copper Phosphate rod). The one you want for color match to CU is the CopperPhos 0 (zero) as it contains no silver. It is also self fluxing so none of that is needed either and it leaves NO pits, depressions or residue. I GUARANTEE that you'll LOVE this stuff for Copper and Brass. Also, Low Fume Bronze rod is GREAT for putting copper pieces together and creates a BEAUTIFUL Golden contrast against the Copper. Silicon Bronze Rod is Nice to use when joining Mild Steels to Copper, Copper to Stainless, etc and has a very nice Pink tinge (new penny look) to it when shined up.

You'll definitely need to use the #7 tip, or better still the 'Brazing Tip' on your Smith Little torch for the Low Fume Bronze and Silicon Bronze Rods as they are definitely a BRAZING material. The very low melting / working point of the Copperphos rods is really quite close to a Hard Silver Solder.

Hope some of this helps !

Cheers,

/Joe...

Welcome Dawn.

Jman has good advice. I think a good part of the trick in joining base metals is to get the heat up quickly, and use the most appropriate flux. A person can get spoiled working in gold and silver.

Also, I use a Smith Little Torch with propane, but mine came with the smallest tips which require acetylene. If you have a small tip you're willing to sacrifice, a little squeeze with a pliers at the end will break out the sapphire and give you a tip with a much larger orifice. I do small work, but use this tip often.