Jewelry Soldering: When Going in Circles Is a Good Thing

“Instant gratification!” Known especially for teaching soldering, Lexi Erickson starts her soldering students on a simple silver band ring. And because practice makes perfect, this project includes the instruction to do it again and then once more. “It’s quick and easy,” she says, “and they leave class with three rings!”

ABOVE: Lexi Erickson’s Stacking Ring Trio project from Everyone’s Guide to How to Solder Jewelry; photo: Jim Lawson

The More, the Merrier?

If soldering one ring closed is a good way to learn, and soldering two more is better, you’d think soldering more rings would help you improve even more. You’d be right, but it’s not just about doing more of the same, it’s about upping the ante. The thinner these circles, the more challenging the join. There’s just so little surface or room for error.

Lexi knows that learning to make soldered chain isn’t quick or easy, but it’s well worth the effort. “One thing that chain making will teach you,” she states, “is precision soldering.” The goal for her soldered chain students is to make a 22″ to 24″ soldered chain, using a variety of wire gauges and diameters and orienting them differently when linking the rings, all without a single joint being visible. This teaches you “exactly how much solder is too much and how much is too little, as wire is very unforgiving.”

With your first finger rings, you can put yours on immediately and show everyone what you made. By the time you’ve beautifully soldered together a chain like this one, you can wear or sell it. “Handmade chains can command a high price in shops and art festivals,” says Lexi. Now you know why.

Jewelry Soldering Tips

Here are a few tips Lexi offers in her soldered chain project:

• BEWARE EXCESS FLUX: A clean solder block really helps. If you flux pieces while they’re on the brick, or flux the back of the piece, which is unnecessary, some of the flux can form a glass on the brick. When you warm the glass trying to solder something else, that warm glass can create problems. Strands of the glass or the rings you’re trying to solder can stick to the brick. Part of the brick can then come up with the ring afer soldering.

• EQUAL HEAT: Make sure you have heated both sides of a jump ring equally, or the solder will flow to one side of the joint or the other.

• WRONG CONNECTION? If you accidentally solder two links together, prepare a sharp, clean solder pick and lightly heat the offending links. Stick the solder pick between the joints and pull them apart. This will usually separate the links.

Lexi Can Guide You Through

Of course there’s more to it than just that. Lexi Erickson has provided Lapidary Journal Jewelry Artist readers with countless soldered jewelry projects and appeared in two videos devoted to jewelry soldering, How to Solder Jewelry and How to Solder Jewelry, Volume 2. Her Sugar Skull project video is her advanced jewelry soldering challenge.

If making more advanced chain is one of your ambitions, Ann Cahoon’s Intro to Chain Making and Further Explorations in Chain Making show you how to create single loop-in-loop chains and double, two-way, two-way double, and three-way loop-in-loop chains, respectively.

Merle White is Editor-in-Chief of Lapidary Journal Jewelry Artist.