I imagine that you have two pieces of sheet coming together at a seam, with only one side of the seam visible. You apply the solder along that side and have it appear to flow alright. Then when you're filing, or whatever, to finish that edge, you quickly file through the solder and end up with a visibly incomplete solder. If that's what's happening, you might be directing your heat to just the outside of the seam and not heating one or both pieces far enough back to pull the solder all the way through the seam.

If I'm finishing something and an incomplete solder appears, I'd usually stop at that point and solder that portion again before continuing with finishing.

If you have scrap you could mock up a similar setup with, where you would get to see both sides of the seam, you might be able to see more easily where things are going wrong.

If I misunderstand let me know.  Good luck.

Lynette,

I'd guess that you're having an issue with the difference in work hardening between the silver and the solder. The lower melting point of the solder means it has more alloys and therefore it probably work hardens before the silver does. Also, it will move less than the silver with the same force applied, thus setting up stresses at the point where the two metals meet.

What you need to do is to use the highest melting-point solder you can manage, like "hard" or "IT", which will have characteristics closer to silver than "easy" or "medium" will. Also, you'll still need to anneal more often, before the silver begins to harden much at all. The solder will be hard, but the solder seam is so small you won't be able to feel the hardness so you have to err on the side of frequent annealings.

Good luck with it,

Rich Waugh

Several things could cause your problems. First never clean up the side down to the solder joint on the side you just did, until you get the other side soldered on. As in both flat sides with the rounded portions in the middle. You start with the rounds placed on the sheet on one side, then go to the second sheet. I've seen way to many people saw and file the ing right donw to the solder joints, and forget when you heat it up again, it can slip a bit. So leaving a lip for it to maybe slip in will help. Then you can flean both sides up fully after the soldering is done.

Next it could be the problem of differeing temp solders being needed as mentioned.

Lastly and a very critical one that most people forget. You need to make a small hole so the air pressure on the inside has a way to escape. If not it will blow out joints when you are trying to seal it all up. This then causes other problems. The tiny hold can be anywhere, but when you got to pickle it will let the pickle solution into the inside of the ring. You need to boil it for a couple of minutes in a baking soda solution to nuetralize it after you do your pickling. When you are totally done with the ring, you can then add a little plug of wire, that you use a powdered solder on. Then it can be filed down. That small bit and with the use of [powdered solder will go quickly and not blow out the rest of the joints. Just make do this final solder. That means inside as well as outside. You can put it in a warm oven at 200 degrees to make sure it is dry.sure the ring is completely dry before you d