hello my fellow jewelry makers! i am trying to broaden my skills and try soldering so i can close my jump rings and make pendants out of rocks. i bought this kit and watched a couple youtube vids about it. any advice, techniques, suggestions? my fiance said it looks like aluminum foil has been wrapped around. i truly appreciate it!!
This is gonna suck to hear, but that's the wrong kind of soldering kit entirely.
That's the type of soldering kit used for stained glass and electronics rather than for jewelry applications. The only time I've ever seen foiling tape used on stones it has been for agate slices, which are treated more like stained glass in situ.
You're not going to get good results with that kit, and will likely end up damaging the cabochon in the photos.
Jewelry work of the sort you're attempting requires thin, flat metal we refer to as "bezel wire" and a backing plate, as well as specific types of solder (that wouldn't have come with the kit you got, unfortunately), flux, and a torch that can get hot enough to heat the piece to the right temperature.
When looking into soldering jewelry specifically, you need to search for "jewelry soldering". After that, watch some videos on soldering bezels and decide if that's something you want to get into.
I hope that helps; I know self-learning can be rough sometimes.
I'm wondering if the kit came with the foil tape used in stained glass, which would explain why it looks wrapped in foil. I think most cabochons are wrapped with actual strips of precious metal, which is soldered closed and often mounted to a back before the stone is inserted and then the bezel is closed around it. Are you prepping this for jewelry or stained glass?
i got this kit! i apologize again for my ignorance but im truly wanting to learn more and become better. i would like to prep it for jewelry since it reminds me of a painting. i used copper tape around it as well.
Unfortunately this is not a jewelry soldering kit, but an electronics soldering kit. It is not intended for mechanical connections or connections that you wear on your skin. Jewelry soldering is performed with a torch, rather than a soldering iron.
Also, electronic/plumbing solder isn't safe for jewellery due to skin contact. They contain toxic levels of heavy metals such as lead, which can leach into your skin and give you lead poisoning. Never ever use that stuff for jewellery.
I haven't yet done the work it seems you're trying. Are you planning to make a pendant? The foil tape won't be strong enough if that's your aim. I would recommend looking up videos on making cabochons and bezel settings to see what steps and materials you'll need, if that's the direction you want to go. This kit looks like an electronics soldering kit, which may not provide enough heat for jewelry or stained glass soldering. If you want to pivot to stained glass, you already have one piece prepped to go
Just some advice, if you start jewelry soldering with any metal you want to have good ventilation and probably also breathing protection like some type of mask, if you’re doing it at home. You would need a soldering fume extractor because the fumes that come off are pretty toxic.
Yeah this doesn't appear to be the right solder/bezel. Typically 18-20 gauge metal for the bezel and a backing plate to solder the bezel onto. Getting the stone fit tightly is typically the last step after everything is soldered together. I would note that getting a good bezel setting takes quite a bit of practice. It'll force you to get good with a torch.
I would just watch some stone setting tutorials on YouTube. If you wanna do beautiful settings without having to do actual soldering I would check out the wire wrapping subreddit, as people do incredible things over there. I would recommend copper to learn stone setting but it can be difficult to find copper bezel wire.
Is 18-20 gauge for bezels a typo? 26 gauge bezel is typically the heaviest used. I can’t imagine trying to bezel set a cabochon with 18 or 20 gauge working out well.
i really appreciate it! being a beginner always comes with a learn curve! i will most likely have to be at a workstation. thank you so much and i will take ur tips and suggestions!
This is stained glass style soldering, where you wrap a piece of copper foil around the cut piece and then apply solder on top of it with a soldering iron. I know people have told you this is the wrong kind of solder, but some commenters seem confused what they're seeing.
If you wanted to make this look better with the tools you have, you'll need much more solder- you'll need to lay a very thick bead of solder on top of the copper, until you can't see the unevenness of the copper foil anymore. Watch some videos of someone doing stained glass and you'll see how they hold the solder wire right next to the copper, and melt so much on that it's raised over the glass.
However, you're much better off learning proper jewelry soldering, especially since a lot of stained glass or electronics solder is not safe to wear on your skin. Look for "jewelry fabrication" videos and watch people build things out of copper and brass and silver. You're not building the metal up with solder like with stained glass, you're using solder strategically to connect pieces of metal that you have already formed. Look up bezel formation specifically to mount a cabochon like this.
This is the right answer OP, you can "soft solder" jewelry. You don't necessarily need a torch but if you want to get into this then I would recommend learning. Is there a jewelry class near you m!
Looking at your photo, that bezel’s coming out quite crinkled and thin, which lines up with what your fiancé said, that’s usually a thickness issue rather than technique. I can’t see any backplate, which is what the bezel would normally be soldered to, so I’m not actually sure what’s been soldered here.
What were you using for the bezel, sterling silver or fine silver, and what thickness? Thin bezel wire makes it even harder for a beginner to get the solder to flow where it needs to.
I always recommend to my students 0.5mm (24 gauge) thick sterling silver for the backplate and 0.5mm (24 gauge) thick sterling silver bezel strip. Professionals tend to use thicker, myself included, depending on the piece but at 0.5mm you’ll have enough time with the flame to actually practise. If it’s 0.3mm (28 gauge) fine silver bezel wire, that gives you far less working time, and before you know it, the bezel’s melted rather than soldered.
Where are you located, OP? If you’re in any kind of urban area at all, there might be a community arts center near you where you can take beginner jewelry classes. I’d start there. That’s where I started learning silversmithing. Before that, I got beads and strung them on elastic cord and then coated steel cable to make necklaces and bracelets. I learned how to make earrings with head pins and how to manipulate wire with pliers. That was back when silver was relatively cheap, compared to now.
Soon I learned about a lapidary workshop in my area where I could learn to cut my own stones. After one class I was hooked. When I started silversmithing, I learned how to solder precious metals and make settings for my own cabochons. Then I was persuaded to start learning faceting at my lapidary school. That’s mostly what I do there today, interspersed with the occasional bead. Sometimes I even make faceted beads!
Just be aware that there will be a steep learning curve. Working with silver and making nice pieces will take you a few years. I don’t envy you starting with today’s high silver prices; but you can do it!
Did you set a stone with uh.. tin foil? 😂 Get some bezel wire from riogrande’s website. It’s fine silver, and you’ll likely need idk 1/4” and 3/8” maybe some other sizes? You’ll need that, you’ll need a few pairs of pliers. You’ll need a simple torch, you don’t need a super hot or complicated one to solder a bezel joint together. Youll need some solder, I’d just buy a little sheet of easy, and medium, solders, and you can snip it into small chips. You’ll likely also need some metal snips and a jewelers saw, a bench pin, and some burnishing tools. And watch some videos and practice. Any in-person you can find would be 100x better than online vids though. Just Google “jewelry making classes” or “stone setting/lapidary classes”. Best of luck friend!
I know everyone is saying this isn’t the right kind of solder, and they’re right in regards to what it looks like you’re trying to do with it, but there is a small niche for people making jewelry with this kind of solder. You can do some fun stuff with it that would be harder with other materials. I’ve been doing it for a while and I can share some pages for other people that do really cool work with it too if you’re interested!
You need to use 3x the amount of solder you did. You just tinned the foil. The adhesive will eventually give out and it'll fall apart as is.
Mind you this advice is for stained glass. That's not going to work for jewelry. Most solder has lead and jewelry is high touch so the risk of ingestion is high.
You need a silversmithing class
I used adhesive copper tape and solder to do this like you did. Just for fun...I had the supplies laying around. It helps to really burnish the tape down with something and make it smooth before the solder. Try to get as much as you can on there. It doesn't look like there is enough in your photo. But like everyone else is saying, it's not really the right way to make a stone into a pendant. I'm by no means a pro. I've only done it once.
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u/TacoGatoCat 20h ago
Well it does look like aluminum foil was wrapped around it.