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SOLDERING SECRETS<\/strong><\/p>\nWhenever I solder palladium and have to forge it afterward, I steer clear of palladium or platinum solders, opting instead for 20 karat white gold hard solder. This enables me to have seams that can withstand the various types of forging I do to combine palladium with other alternative metals, such as stainless steel. If the solder seams are precise and meet well, it is difficult to detect any color difference.<\/p>\n
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When soldering stainless steel to gold-a look that I love – I use a high temperature brazing flux. I use Black Flux, which is available at welding supply stores. It’s important to be cautious and use ventilation with this product because it contains fluorides.<\/p>\n
Also, for the best and cleanest results when soldering stainless to other metals, opt for an oxygen\/propane torch, which allows you to work with virtually any metal combination that can be soldered. I use the Smith Little Torch. While you can use acetylene, it isn’t appropriate for platinum group metals.<\/p>\n
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FINER FINISH<\/strong> After touching up the steel with rubberized abrasives where necessary, I use White Diamond polishing compound followed by blue rouge. While this can be done on the polishing lathe, I find that I achieve the best results with medium to hard felts at the bench (with dust collection, of course).<\/p>\n This article from MJSA Journal, May 2010<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" With the high price of gold, jewelry makers are looking to incorporate alternative metals into their lines. I frequently work with palladium and stainless steel in my shop. The following are a few tips and tricks you can use to work more effectively with these metals.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":62,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[8,9,11],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/technical-articles.hooverandstrong.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/technical-articles.hooverandstrong.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/technical-articles.hooverandstrong.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/technical-articles.hooverandstrong.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/62"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/technical-articles.hooverandstrong.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=132"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/technical-articles.hooverandstrong.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":145,"href":"http:\/\/technical-articles.hooverandstrong.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132\/revisions\/145"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/technical-articles.hooverandstrong.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=132"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/technical-articles.hooverandstrong.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=132"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/technical-articles.hooverandstrong.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=132"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nStainless steel finishing may at first seem difficult, but it is actually very easy to do if you follow a few simple extra steps. First, treat stainless more like platinum than gold: It takes more time and effort to achieve the best possible finish. I use a seven-step abrasive process, typically beginning at 120 grit (depending on the starting surface) and proceeding all the way to 2,000 grit. This is much more labor-intensive than gold and silver finishing, which can be accomplished with three to four abrasive steps prior ro prepolishing.<\/p>\n