Sourcing silver solder?

H Wally

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Wondering what stores might commonly carry silver solder? I had a small amount of it, but have now run out :( I've never looked for it, and have never noticed it, so have no idea if it's common or not. I'd imagine some craft shops might have it.

Typically how expensive is it?
 
You can make your own easily enough. You can start with lead-free plumbing solder and add pure silver (from a 1oz ingot). It melts eventually with a propane torch. MAP works better. Don't use an oxygen fed torch or you'll get bubbles in the melt.

Drill a blind hole in a piece of wood (oak works well), blacken with the torch and do the alloying in there. Cover a couple holes on the torch tip until you get a slightly rich flame and add a little (borax + baking soda 50/50) mixture as flux to keep oxygen out of it.

Slowly pour the molten silver alloy into a glass of water to make beads of shot than you can pound flat, fold in half and use for soldering purposes. You can pound it into short pieces of wire if you like, but not necessary for most tasks, just hold a half-moon shaped disk with pliars.

This is a jeweler's trick that will let you produce a few different harnesses of silver solder (more or less silver/tin) so you can solder a piece that's already soldered if you need to without using the first joint. Use the hardest solder first and then step down if you need further joints.
 
Praxair in Nanaimo sells silver solder wire in roughly a 3' length. It used to be about $16 for a package but with the price of silver very high now that has probably doubled or trebled. I think the trade name is Braze 450 and stands for 45% silver and 55% copper. That alloy is the lowest melting temperature of silver/copper solder. If my memory is correct pure silver and pure copper both melt around 1800 F

cheers mooncoon
 
I have a bunch of the stuff for sale on the EE under my WTS jewellery thread. ;)

Dunno if I could post a link here or not, probably just as easy to view my threads through my profile.
 
silver solder

You might also try some of the industrial suppliers, such as Acklands. I bought my last roll there.

I also got some low temperature silver solder at a Home Hardware store, along with the flux for it. It comes in handy for those delicate jobs.
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Best place for gunsmithing silver solder is Brownells - http://www.brownells.com/

I used it for years - comes in fine wire or flat strips - they also sell flux for it as well. A tip if you don't know it already - to remove the flux - have a kettle of boiling water handy - as soon as you're finished soldering, pour the boiling water over the soldered joint and it removes all the flux residue that otherwise hardens like glass and is hard to remove.
 
The lead solder that used to be used for soldering copper pipe has been essentially banned due to the lead, and replaced with silver solder. So any place that has plumbing supplies should have it.
 
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