Lara,

Welcome to ArtMetal!

Yes, solder the piece on first. When you solder it, the best bet is to use great car in getting a perfect fit-up and then use only as much solder as is required to effect the joint - no clean-up that way. It may help to cut the solder into tiny little flat snippets so you can place them carefully at the/in the joint area. Silversmithing textbooks will detail this method more completely and you should have one or more books.

After soldering, boil the piece in water for twenty or thirty minutes and then pickle- the boiling removes much of the fused flux and slows contamination of the pickle. Use only copper tongs in your pickle. After pickling, scour the piece with a paste of pumice and water using a toothbrush - gets all the nooks and crannies clean. Then polish the whole works.

Once the piece is all bright, you can see any areas that need additional sanding or polishing and you take care of that with the appropriate abrasive or buffing compound and substrate. Sometimes a piece of old felt from a trashed felt hat is a good method to do hand buffing. Can also be glued to a stick for more control.

After that, coat any areas you want to keep shiny and bright with melted beeswax to resist the patination chemicals. Create the patina and then wash off the beeswax with solvent followed by soap and water. That should do it. Wax the piece with Renaissance wax to preserve the surface.

If you have other questions feel free to ask. There are a lot of very sharp people here to help you.

rich seems to have covered the process perfectly... so all i can add is my welcome to artmetal!

Embrace Simplicity

It is certainly best to get the solder amount just right or a bit lean. If you occasionally get some where it is not wanted a nice tool to have is a triangular scraper. You can buy these from jewelry suppliers but most are of very poor quality. It is better to make your own from old triangular files. You just slightly hollow grind each surface and taper to a sharp tip at the end. With such a tool you can use the tip or the curved edges near the tip to quickly scrape away unwanted solder. Many machinists make these for their own tool kits and you can sometimes find them at flea markets or antique stores. They are easy to make though. Be sure to mount them in a nice handle to make them easy to use.