Byzantine Necklace Take 2: What Worked Better

So I gave the first Byzantine necklace to a charity fundraiser, but since I made it once, I wanted to try making it again, better, to submit to a competition. I know a little bit more now, and wanted to try a few things in a more refined way.

I made the central motifs in a slightly simpler way, but I still joined them together first. I was also more attentive to how the points of contact worked with the outer rings. When joining them to the outer rings, I had eight individual points of contact that needed solder. I used easy solder this time, and that ended up being an okay choice. Tiny bits of solder will melt and ball up just like any other metal. I balled up my tiny bits of solder before placing them at the joints. For some reason, probably because of the beaded wire's grooves, these were much easier to place, and much more stable.

After torching:

The other thing I did differently was when attaching the bail, and unfortunately I don't have a photo of this. But I reversed what was being held in the third hand. I put the bail on the charcoal block and held the filigree motif in the third hand. The third hand acted like a heat sink while the charcoal reflected heat back on the bail, letting it heat up faster and more thoroughly. This made the operation much smoother than the other way around, since the filigree is going to heat to temp much faster than the bail.

Overall, this one was much easier done.

Documenting Problems: Batch Soldering

In an effort to practice without breaking the bank, I asked friends if they'd be willing to pay for rings made to size, in the style of the 7th century Frankish ring I documented here a few weeks ago. Several people were down for it, so cool beans, right? Well, sort of. I wanted practice, and I got it! And I've learned some things along the way.

1. Cutting out and forming all the bezel components? Easy. Fast. Great to do as a batch. I did learn that cutting down the bezel wire width-wise is an uncompromising hell that's not worth the time and effort. It works, but it's not nice, so I ordered bezel wire in the proper width.

2. It's really, really easy to melt bezel wire. It just is. Especially when using hard solder. If everything is not perfectly clean and fluxed, the solder doesn't melt properly, you keep the heat on just a little too long trying to coax it, and the next thing you know, your bezel is fused, but also half melted. And the solder still hasn't flowed.

3. Batch soldering all the bezels onto a single back plate: nice idea in theory, in practice, my torch wasn't up to the task. The solder either refused to flow altogether, or else it melted and flowed sluggishly. Turns out, the large back plate, sitting on a stainless steel screen up on a tripod, was a terrific heat sink. The first rule of soldering is that the pieces you're joining have to fully reach the melting temperature of the solder. The butane micro torch just didn't have the juice to heat all of, or enough of, that back plate all at once. The individual pieces were mostly salvageable, and I ended up with a LOT of tiny pieces of solder in my pickle pot.

4. Soldering three components onto one back plate at a time doesn't always work on the first go. After I got the back plate cut down into individual back plates, and set everything up to re-solder, I found that the outermost rings on half of the bezels weren't firmly secured. The other half were fine, though. So I had to re-solder the ones that weren't up to snuff.  Not the worst thing, by far.

5. However, oh yes, number 4 gets worse. Because in the process of re-soldering, I didn't realize that my torch was almost empty of fuel. When the fuel gets low, the flame doesn't get as hot. So I struggled to get the solder to melt and flow. I got it eventually, but I ended up overheating two pieces. They didn't melt, but they've got some fire scale I need to try and get off. That would be much easier if it was a smooth bezel, but with the beaded wire, I'm going to have to see what I can accomplish with a dremel, a nylon brush head, and some tripoli polishing compound.

All the bezels are now complete, filed, and ready to be polished and attached to shanks. I still had one that needed to be re-soldered after the outer ring came loose in filing. But they're at a good point now, and I've only lost two throughout all this. It's all part of the learning process!

Soldering Continued

My previous post went over the absolute basics and vocabulary of soldering. But it didn't discuss how to actually solder two pieces of metal together. Or even what soldering particularly is. Let's discuss that a bit more.

Solder, as previously discussed, is a metal (let's keep talking about silver, but this can apply to gold and lead, too) that is alloyed together with certain precise percentages of copper and zinc (and sometimes tin). The finished alloy has a lower melting point than pure silver. When solder is placed at the joint of two pieces of clean metal that have been prevented from oxidizing, and then those pieces of metal are heated to the melting point of the solder, the solder will then melt and "flow" through capillary action into the joint it is closest to, and once it re-hardens, it will create a physical join between those two pieces.

Let's unpack that a bit.

• The metal pieces must both be at the correct temperature for the solder to melt and flow. It's not enough for the solder to be that temperature.
• The solder won't fill gaps between pieces. If there's a gap, what solder is infinitely more likely to do is to just flow over whichever piece it's closest to, making a mess, and not joining it to anything.
• The solution to this is to make sure that your pieces are touching.
• The solder loves heat, and it will flow towards heat. Heating the side of your piece that is away from the solder can be useful, so you don't burn your solder.
• Flux keeps your metal from oxidizing. If you do not thoroughly clean and flux your pieces prior to soldering, the solder will not flow.
• "Clean" means free from dirt, debris, and oil, including oil transferred via skin. "Cleaning" metal often means going over it with a piece of fine grain sandpaper.
• Not only do you have to get the solder to melt and flow, you must also remove the heat from the piece after the solder has flowed, to allow it to re-harden. You can overheat a piece.

Your heat source needs to be able to heat the entirety of both pieces you're joining to the correct melting point. For small bits of jewelry, this can be done with a handheld butane torch, which is what I use. For larger pieces, you can use a full size torch head on a propane tank (attached with a hose, for maneuverability), or MAPP gas canister. MAPP burns a bit hotter than propane, and propane burns hotter than butane. You can also get an oxy-propane or oxy-acetylene torch, which infuses the fuel with straight O2, from an oxygen tank. Both of these will burn very hot, and are frankly overkill for tiny jewelry projects, but absolutely perfect if you want to weld steel. They also work perfectly well for jewelry, and professional jewelers use them. For starting out, a solid little handheld butane micr-torch will solder silver just fine, though.

And last thing I want to touch on: the amount of solder you need. It's probably less than you think. Think about it this way. You want enough physical material to fill the joint of your two pieces that are touching, where they are touching. The joint should be able to be measured in micrometers, because your pieces are touching, but it might be several millimeters or even centimeters long. For reference, and to give you an idea, I used 4 pieces of wire solder, each cut about 1mm long, to attach this 8mm diameter bezel to the back plate. You can see three of them in this photo below. This amount of solder made a solid joint all the way around the bezel.

So the actual process for soldering is this:

Step 1. Clean your pieces of metal.

Step 2. Apply flux to your pieces of metal where you want them to join.

Step 3. Place solder as required for your joint.

Step 4. Gently heat your piece. The flux may bubble up if you're using borax. That's normal. The solder may jump around. Pause, re-set your solder where it belongs, and continue heating.

Step 5. The flux will change colors. That's normal. The solder will start to gently glow, and then melt, and then flow. Make sure your piece is evenly heated, and that your joint is fully, evenly heated, to draw the solder into it.

Step 6. Remove the heat and allow the piece to sit for ~30 seconds.

Step 7. Pickle the piece. The time your piece sits in the pickle solution will depend on how strong your solution is mixed, and whether it's warm or cold. Let the piece stay in until it looks clean. It will have a white cast on it, that's normal.

Step 8. Using copper tongs, remove the piece from the pickle, and place it in the neutralizing bath. It doesn't need to sit in this bath, just a quick dip.

Step 9. Dry the piece and check to see if the joint is solid.

Step 10. Assuming the joint is solid, proceed with any filing, sanding, and polishing necessary.

Intro to Soldering

This is essentially a class handout, but the information is a good overview and introduction to basic modern soldering. My tool list is a little tongue in cheek. Essentially, you will absolutely definitely want some of the tools in the "More Tools..." list. Your actual project and interests will dictate which ones. Also, I'm positive that I'm missing tools and chemicals that you may want. These are just the ones that are most common. This guide is meant to be the starting point, not the be-all end-all. Finally, I want to note that this is heavily, heavily skewed toward soldering silver, and soldering jewelry.

Tool List:

Basic necessities for soldering:

Clean metal pieces to be soldered together
Solder
Flux
Pickle solution (in a container)
Neutralizer (in a container)
Copper tweezers
Stainless steel tweezers
Torch
Soldering surface (charcoal, ceramic, etc.)
Small paintbrush for the flux

More tools you may want:
A jewelry saw and blades
Bench pin
Third hand with tweezers
Wire cutters
Round nose pliers
Stepped barrel pliers
Chain nose pliers
Steel ring mandrel
Steel bracelet mandrel
Tripod
Small steel anvil
Nylon, plastic, or rawhide hammer
Steel hammer (ball peen or chasing work nicely)
Solder pick
Files
Different grades of sandpaper (200, 400, 800, 1000, 2000, 3000)
Polishing compound
Rags
Nylon bristle brushes 

Brass brush
Dremel or flex shaft
Magnifier

You can find all tools necessary (and then some) at riogrande.com or ottofrei.com. Some of the above tools can be found at Harbor Freight, Lowe’s, Home Depot, or other hardware stores. Some tools may be found at hobby or specialty stores, but the average Joann’s, Michael’s, or Hobby Lobby is going to only be a good source for things like pliers and cutters.

What is SILVER SOLDER?

• Silver solder is silver that’s been alloyed with copper and zinc to lower its melting point. It comes in Hard, Medium, Easy, and Extra-Easy. Hard has the most silver content and the highest melting point, while Extra-Easy not only has the least silver content, it’s also got a bit of tin, and the lowest melting point. Professional jewelers do not use Extra-Easy. When performing multiple soldering operations, it can be helpful to use hard for the first step, medium for the second step, and easy for the third step. That makes it less likely that you will melt or disrupt an earlier joint when doing later work.

What is FLUX?

• Flux is a liquid or paste that keeps the metal surface from oxidizing during the heating process. If the metal oxidizes, the solder will not flow properly, and the joint will either not be made at all, or will be made badly. There are many different kinds of flux, as well as period recipes for flux. Personally, I use a borax cone and distilled water in an unglazed ceramic dish. Borax was known and used in metalwork in the medieval period. Because it’s more liquid than paste flux, it’s also easy to see if your surface is clean enough. The borax/water will bead up on the surface if it’s still dirty or oily.

What is PICKLE?

• Pickle is an acidic water solution that is used to clean the excess flux and oxidation from your piece after you’ve soldered it. Alum is a safe pickle (that’s made in using edible pickles, too!) that you can find in the grocery store, near the spices. Citric acid is another pickling agent that is environmentally friendly, and relatively safe to handle. I use sodium bisulfate. It’s a dry powder chemical I purchase from Rio Grande. Either way, your pickle solution will work better warmed. It can be in a glass jar on a candle warmer, or in a mini crockpot on low. It can also be used at room temperature, it may just take longer. If you are using sodium bisulfate, you MUST use copper tweezers, and do NOT touch the liquid with your hands. It can be irritating to the skin. Exercise caution when using chemicals and fire. There are other chemical pickling agents on the market, but these are commonly found.

What is a NEUTRALIZER?

• If you’re using sodium bisulfate, your piece must be neutralized before you can handle it. Simple baking soda will neutralize it. Create a separate solution of baking soda and distilled water and keep that near your soldering station. This liquid can also be used for quenching. Even if you’re using alum or citric acid, I would still recommend rinsing the piece in clean distilled water before moving on with it.

Soldering Basics:

Silver solder comes in several forms:

Wire - looks like regular metal wire, and should be labeled immediately. Can be cut to desired lengths with wire cutters. I find it helps to go over the end with some fine grit sandpaper just before cutting.

Sheet - looks like metal sheet and should be labeled immediately. The idea with sheet is to cut a little fringe at the end, and then cut pieces off the fringe as needed. You can also go over the end with some fine grit sandpaper before cutting the fringe.

Pallions - Pre-cut solder chips. These can be as small as .5mm x 1mm

Paste - Solder filings and paste flux pre-mixed together in a squeeze tube. You do not need to use a separate flux for this. Paste is favored by some who do filigree.

Metals being soldered must be CLEAN. Free of dirt, debris, and oil, including oils transferred from skin. A bit of fine sandpaper over the joint cleans it nicely. Alternately, dip it in your pickle solution for a minute, then neutralize, only touching it with tweezers.

Metals being soldered together must TOUCH each other. They must have good, contacting surface area. The solder won’t fill gaps. A lot of period examples of open filigree from the Byzantines feature granules at joints. My theory is that these granules provide surface area and contact between elements, ensuring a good join is made.

Silver solder will join brass, copper, mild steel, and stainless steel, as well as silver. It will also join any of these metals to each other. Gold solder should be used for working on gold, though easy silver solder can be used to join silver and gold together.

The pieces you’re joining together must both be at the same temperature, the temperature required to melt and flow the solder, in order for the solder to flow. The heat doesn’t directly melt the solder, the metal does. And the solder gets pulled toward the hottest thing. Joining a tiny piece of metal to a more massive piece of metal, therefore, is a bit tricky. It takes longer to heat up the bigger piece, and you risk melting the smaller piece. Sweat soldering can be a useful technique for this kind of task, and is something I’ll go more in depth about in a separate post. However, it's also what the tripod is for. When soldering a bezel to a back plate, or sometimes filigree or granulation to a back plate, where the pieces on top are smaller and lighter than your base, you elevate the piece and apply heat to the bottom. You heat the back plate first, and the heat transfers up to the smaller, more delicate pieces, so they heat more evenly.

Hand Sewing for Beginners

Common Sewing Myths:

-Sewing is hard.  False!  Sewing just takes practice and patience.  Sewing something complicated, like a full Elizabethan court gown, right out the gate is probably going to be an overwhelming task.  But making an apron, a coif, or even a simple tunic is great practice and can be very relaxing once you get the hang of it.

-Sewing stitches have to be tiny and perfect.  False!  Stitches need to be relatively even, that’s true.  And as you improve, you may find your stitches getting smaller.  But there’s such a thing as over sewing!  Seam stitches can be about 1/8” long, and hem stitches can be ¼”.  And you don’t need to stress about each stitch being exactly the same.   Stay in a straight line, and keep your tension even.  Use chalk to mark a line out if you need to.

-Machine stitching is stronger than hand sewing.  False!  A backstitch by hand is just as strong, if not stronger, than a machine stitch.  Sewing by machine is faster, that’s true, but sewing by hand is more versatile, more portable, and can be just as professional looking.

Sewing Terms to Know

Seam:  The line of stitches that joins two pieces of fabric together.

Seam Allowance: This is the bit of fabric on the edge of the seam that traditionally gets turned tot eh inside. These raw edges will fray unless they’re finished or encased in some way.  On average, leaving a bigger seam allowance (up to 1”) allows you more options for finishing, and also gives you room to let out a garment, if it’s too tight.  A good rule of thumb is to have at least ½” of seam allowance.

Hem: The finishing of open edges of a sewn piece, like cuffs, necklines, the bottom edge, or the edges of flaps, as in bags.  Hemming these edges finishes them, to keep them from fraying.  There are many options for hems!

Hem allowance: The piece of fabric that gets folded up to make a hem. This can be as small as 1/8-1/4", or as much as 5-6”, depending on what kind of hem you’re making.  It can also be 0”, if you’re leaving the edge raw, or using embroidery or other flat stitching to finish it.

Selvage: The factory finished edge of fabric.  These edges won’t usually fray as badly as cut edges (if at all) but they may shrink differently, and they usually have a different appearance than the rest of the fabric.

Needles:
Sharps – This is a small, sharply pointed sewing needle with a short, round eye.  Finer needles are better for sewing thinner fabrics, and heavier needles are good for sewing thicker fabrics.
Ballpoint – These needles have a rounded point, and are meant for sewing stretchy
(knit) fabric.
Embroidery – These small, sharp needles have a much longer, skinny eye.  You can sew with them, and you may find them easier to thread.

Needle Threader: This is a little device that looks like a foil coin with a wire diamond shape on one end. Stick the wire diamond through the eye of your needle, put the end of the thread through it, and then pull it back through the eye.  Presto!  Your needle is threaded!  You can buy these alone, or they come with most sewing kits.

Fabric: Everybody knows what fabric is.  But the best fabrics for portraying the medieval period are linen, silk, and wool.  These fabrics are known to have existed in period.  Cotton existed in some places, especially toward the later period, but it’s not as common.  All of these are breathable fabrics that are relatively fire safe.  They may burn, but they won’t melt!  They can be expensive to practice with, though.  Cotton muslin is a good practice fabric.  Corduroy is, too.  Shiny, slippery satins, brocades, and thin chiffon are going to be much harder to work with. 

Thread: Poly/cotton (all purpose) thread, cotton thread, and linen thread are all good to sew with.  You may want to wax linen thread to make it a bit easier to use.  Silk thread can be used on a very fine project, but don’t think you must use it.  Silk can also be waxed. Do not use machine embroidery thread to sew with.

Straight stitch:

Back stitch:

Whip Stitch is a spiral, as though you were sewing the stripe around a barber pole. 

Soldering: Joints

Let's start with the basics. Silver solder is silver alloyed with copper and zinc to reduce its melting point below the melting point of pure (or sterling) silver. Something I find truly amazing is that solder has been made that way for centuries. Millennia. It's a very, very old metalworking substance.

When you place a little bit of solder on or near two pieces of silver that are clean, and touching, and heat both of those pieces to the melting point of the solder, the solder will melt and flow between them, bonding them together. The two key points there are CLEAN (which means free from any dirt or oils, including oils transferred through contact with skin - don't touch your joints!) and TOUCHING. If there is no metal to metal contact, or very poor metal to metal contact, your solder won't form a bond, it will just flow over whichever piece of metal it's closest to. The joints should meet smoothly, fully, and allow no light to pass through them.

Here are some examples of bad joints that will not properly join as-is.

Below is the absolute MINIMUM you want to see in a joint before trying to solder it. The joint in the photo below can still be better.

7th Century Frankish Ring

Here's my latest project, continuing to try new things, and build on things I've already tried. I wanted to make a version of this ring. 

And check out this amazing back! 

So I started with the bezel, with an 8mm round cabochon. The first part is exactly like my first bezel ring. 

Then I formed the beaded wire around the center bezel, then formed a 1mm round wire around that. 

I soldered the round wire, I did not solder the beaded wire. 

Then I arranged all three pieces onto a back plate, and soldered them all on at the same time. I use wire solder, and cut pieces right around 1mm long. Yes. They're tiny. I could buy the precut pallions, but the wire is more versatile. I used approximately 10 pieces, with four inside the bezel and six spaced evenly around the outer edge, balanced between the beaded wire and the round wire. Heating the bezel from underneath on a tripod pulls the melted solder down to the back plate when it flows. It flows toward the heat.

I used a jeweler's saw to cut out the bezel, and a file to neaten up the edge. The photo is before the file work was done.

Now time for the shank! The ring band. Starting with 2mm round wire.

I flattened the end a bit. I drew it out slightly, as well.

Then I used the saw to split the end in two. Getting this even actually failed both times, but it's close enough I was able to file the fatter side down to match the other side.

The process of curling those forked ends out took some fiddling. Round nose pliers, a bit more hammering, filing, annealing, cutting a bit of the ends off, pliers again. The photos over simplify the process, really, but I also think practice will simplify the process in time, too. I ended up doing two things wrong, overall: I flattened too much of the wire, really, and I split too far down. Both times. The former is just something to know for the future. The latter was cured by cutting off the ends as I formed them.

Repeat that on the other side, and then form the shank around a mandrel. This involved a steel mandrel and rubber headed hammer. And then a lot of fiddling to get the curlicues to sit flat on the back of the bezel.

I did clean everything up with a file, and then the pieces can be soldered together.

I need to add the granules to the shank, and then it's time to set the stone! I puzzled over the best way to attach the granules. I don't have any gum Arabic or hide glue, which would both be good temporary adhesives to hold the granules in place. I decided to solder the granules together, since there are only three to each side, and then I used a third hand to hold the ring at an angle, and sweat soldered each granule cluster one at a time. Sweat soldering, in this situation, involved melting a bit of easy solder on the back of the granule cluster, placing it on the band, and then heating it all together, to melt that solder and make it flow between all the pieces. 

So here's the finished setting, ready for the stone. The granules were more successfully attached on one side than the other, but I accepted several steps back that this was a test piece, so I'm not going to attempt cutting them off and reattaching them. I did also polish the piece (by hand) at this point. I might go back over it again, but I wanted to get it to a certain point before adding the stone. This is another black onyx. The original cabochon was blue glass. I've ordered some blue lapis lazuli stones to use for the next version. 

And here's the finished ring!