[TheForge] Soldering Stainless- or welding

[James Binnion]

I am in Bellingham. The suppliers I use are mail order ones, Hoover &  
Strong (hooverandstrong.com), Stuller (stuller.com), Hauser & Miller  
(http://hauserandmiller.com/) all have good prices on solder. Rio  
Grande (riogrande.com) also provides solder but is a little more  
expensive.

One thing to remember jewelers are looking for color match and they  
tend to use solders that are higher in silver content than the ones  
that are typically sold in welding supply houses. There is some  
overlap but only at the lowest temperature range.

Jewelers use archaic and absolutely meaningless terms to describe  
their solders and the compositions and melting temps vary slightly  
from manufacturer to manufacturer. They tend to only have silver,  
copper and zinc as components and most do not contain any cadmium.

Extra Easy: 1145-1200 F   56% silver   This is the same as AWS BAg-7  
or SafetySilv 56 from Harris
Easy: 65% Silver 1301-1333 F No AWS equivalent
Medium: 70% Silver 1328-1409 F No AWS equivalent
Hard: 80% Silver  1373-1432 F  No AWS equivalent
IT: 71% Silver  1346-1472 F No AWS equivalent

The silver content is higher than most of the brazing alloys that you  
get from the welding supply so that may be one reason for the higher  
price you experienced.


I called my local Airgas dealer today and their Harris SafetySilv 56  
is $56.33 for a three troy oz roll of 3/32 wire, Stuller quoted me  
$54.72 for three troy oz of extra easy. So not much difference but  
still a little cheaper. Since silver is at $12.58 an oz today they  
both are getting a nice profit from $21 worth of silver :-)

The other Harris Silver braze alloys you may find at the welders  
supply are 45, 40, and 25 % silver so consequently cheaper than the 56 %

Jim





On Aug 24, 2006, at 9:31 AM, Michael wrote:

> James,
> I'm in Seattle; where are you? After all, I want to be fair. My  
> personal
> experience does not constitute the whole picture. So, I will take a  
> deeper
> look into the subject. So, if you'd care to name the dealer, I'll  
> be happy
> to take a look.
> Mikey
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: theforge-bounces at mailman.qth.net
> [mailto:theforge-bounces at mailman.qth.net] On Behalf Of James Binnion
> Sent: Wednesday, August 23, 2006 10:33 PM
> To: Sponsored by ABANA
> Subject: Re: [TheForge] Soldering Stainless- or welding
>
>
> On Aug 23, 2006, at 12:13 PM, Michael wrote:
>>  just like the
>> so-called silver solder sold by jewelers supply outfits are nothing
>> more
>> than short lengths of standard silver braze wire, snipped from
>> standard
>> reasonably priced spools, and then sold in plastic baggies-for
>> outrageous
>> prices. Drug dealers have nothing on these guys, and it's all legal
>> to boot!
>>
>> Mikey
>
> Mikey,
>
> You must be buying at the wrong places I buy silver solder from
> jewelers suppliers at better prices than from the welding suppliers.
>
>
> James Binnion
> jbin at well.com
>
>
>
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James Binnion
jbin at well.com