Another soldering question

[JTR]

I’ve been making a knife, a dagger in a silver sheath, and have read some answers to some other soldering questions, and hope you can help with my dilemma as well.
The knife is close to being finished, but now I’d like to add a sheet of gold to the guard on the sheath, as a spacer between the guard on the sheath and the one on the knife.
The problem is that I’ve soldered the silver guard on the sheath with extra easy silver solder, and am concerned that I’ll unsolder the guard while trying to solder on the gold.
So the question; Do you have to use gold solder to solder gold to silver, or can you use soft solder, like Stay-bright to solder the two together?
I realize this might be a knife forum question, but you guys are just so good!
Thanks in advance, John

 

[jimzim75]

If you stacking the solder like layer on a cake and gravity is work for you. You could use the same solder that you used to
solder silver on. You can also use yellow ocher and water in a past form to stop the solder form flowing.

If you can't get gravity to help you, then yes you can use Stay-Bright. If you do choose this route, use the Stay-Bright
sparingly. Rolling it out in thin sheets will help. Or you could try tinning the section to be soldered

 

[JTR]

Thanks for the quick answer, Jim.
Much appriciated!
John

 

[DanM]

If you don't have access to yellow ocher,you can use "white out" availible from any office supply or walmart.

 

[JTR]

Thanks for that info too.
I have some solder Stop-flow I bought from Rio Grande, and will practice with it and stay-bright to see how it works.
This is my first knife, and first adventure in doing several things I’ve never done before, and just don’t want a meltdown during one of the final steps!
Even though I don’t post much, I really enjoy reading this forum, and all the unbelievable talent and expertise here!
John

 

[lesholmes]

I have used silver solder in both easy and medium to solder gold to silver. Remembering that solder flows towards heat and that gold heats faster than silver (a simplification), feed your flame to the silver and let it conduct to the gold.

Practice is always a good idea before working on a nearly completed item.

Les

 

[monk]

rio grande and gesswein sells a "heatsink" soldering paste. it allows one to solder whilst more or less confining the heat. preventing desoldering or damage to mounted stones. i've never used it, but you might want to try this. i used to fabricate rings from sheet silver. i used solders with 4 different flow temperatures. this does, however, require very careful eyeballing and heat application on something small like a ring.

 

[Mike Cirelli]

I don't really understand what your doing but. If you get yourself a liquid whiteout pen and apply it to the area you had already soldered, it will help keep the solder from flowing (it'll be close so no mistakes). This will buy you a few degrees of temp. When you have to do multiple solderings close to each other you should start with as high a temperature solder you can and work your way down.

 

[Markofx]

For future reference

When using silver or gold solder, their flow point is in fact brazing temperture. So if you try to use a stay-brite solder afterwards, it will work, but be very careful with the amount you use. What you're going to be doing is sweat soldering. Flux the piece you want to overlay in the silver then add some small chips an flow the solder on the back of the piece. Then put some flux on the silver piece and apply some heat to dry it before you atempt to solder the gold piece on. I mix either Ocher or whiteout and take a thin brush and draw as close as you can to the place to be soldered. This will stop the solder from running out from under the overlay on to the silver.

Mark