I am having trouble doing the following: I have an oval piece of silver and am winding a 14 guage wire around it. No problem with that. But when I try to solder the wire onto the oval piece of silver it doesn't seem to work very well because some of the soldering doesn't catch. I put flux onto where wire and silver meet but of course the flux doesn't get under the wire because the wire is wrapped tight. I clean it first with a toothbrush and dishwashing soap. Any ideas what I am doing wrong? When I snip the wires on the back of the oval silver the top wire comes off which means the solder isn't holding.

I would guess that the wire is heating up much faster than the oval and "sucking up" all the solder. Both pieces need to come up to soldering temperature at pretty much the same time to get a good join. Try heating just the oval and let the oval heat the wire, or heat from behind -- or put something to act as a little heat sink on the wire. The oval will need a lot more heat to come to temperature than the wire, so in this case, you don't want to use your torch evenly.

Cindy

sounds like its probably a heating issue. The wire will not hardly need any heat on it just a touch when the solder is about to flow. About 85% of the heat should be moving over the sheet.
A guess anyway one of those things you almost need to see.

D

Hi Everyone,

I need HELP! I want to start soldering... where can I buy the materials? I am using copper, sliver, gold wire. And do anyone have a web site for this info.?