Can we have a really clear distinction between Silver Soldering and Brazing

So ... The answer to the question posed by Chris is NO

MichaelG.

Soldering is the process of joining metal items with another metal (called solder) that has a melting point lower than the items to be joined. Solder is divided into two major groups; soft, which melts below 450C, and hard, which melts above. Originally, the basic soft solder was an alloy of mainly lead and tin, and the basic hard solder was an alloy of mainly copper and zinc - ie brass. If you used lead solder you called the process soldering. If you used brass you called the process brazing.

As new alloys were developed, the divisions became somewhat blurred, and two major groups became more descriptive - soft soldering using alloys that melted below about 450C, and hard soldering with alloys that melted above. Possibly (somebody must know), when it was discovered that an alloy containing an appreciable amount of silver made a very strong solder with a melting point below that of brass, it became known as silver-solder. The actual process of using brass or silver-solder is the same for both. The proper term is called hard-soldering. Brazing is really soldering with brass.

In the manufacture of jewellery, items are often joined by soldering. We use a hard soldering technique but only use silver-solder for silver items. Gold items are soldered with an alloy containing gold, and platinum and palladium have their own solders. Soft solder is never used for "proper" jewellery. We don't use the term silver-soldering; just soldering. Different grades of solders have different melting points that are determined by the components of the various alloys.

I agree - but it was good to watch the willie-waving!

Isn't it wonderfull that a properly made joint doesn't care what the definition is.

:0)

Martin

Well, I disagree. Reading the submissions I see a good consensus about the main differences between soldering and brazing, with examples, and contributions usefully explaining how and why the terminology is a bit wobbly. I didn't spot any competition between answers, let alone willy waving.

Is this a theory vs practical thing? Some technicians lose interest as soon as an answer allows them to get results, even if it's inaccurate. After that, I suppose any extra information might be considered boastful. Fair enough, but engineering progress depends on building understanding, not just repeating old tricks, however effective they are! And over-simplifying is dodgy on a forum like this because members come from so many different fields. In this thread for example we learn the Silver Solder used in electronics is completely different from the Silver Solder used in Brazing.

Dave

They are both exactly the same technique just using different fillers and in consequence different temperatures.

Martin

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Dave ... The question wasn’t about the difference between soldering and brazing; it was about the distinction [if any] between ‘silver soldering’ and ‘brazing’.

Years ago it was simple; because the emphasis was on the composition of the filler/solder ...
Things have changed, and the emphasis is now on temperature [and the term ‘silver soldering’ seems to have been deprecated]

Personally, I find this counter-intuitive; because if I solder something using silver alloys [and do not use a brazier for heating] I can see no logic in calling this brazing. ... But those ‘in power’ have decided differently, and so be it.

MichaelG.

Hi folks

Words fail.

There's an expression involving a horse and water but I can't recall it at the moment.

Perhaps I should just keep my thoughts to myself. Is that the bugler playing "The Last Post"?

. . . . like you can take a horse to water but a pencil must be lead.

I put my effort into making sound joints rather than counting angels on pins.

Neil

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Very noble of you, Neil ... but have you actually tried to answer the question that Chris asked us ?

... My recent answer was an explicit NO

MichaelG.

Edited By Michael Gilligan on 21/01/2020 17:05:01

and do not use a brazier for heating

Who knows? Perhaps they found they had to put the item in a brazier to get to a suitable temperature. Or perhaps ‘brazing’ is a term introduced instead of ‘brassing’. One thing is evident - (manual) soft soldering often entails the use of a soldering iron. Perhaps ‘brassing’ did, too, when it was first adopted for connecting together brass items. Anybody know?

Martin summed it up quite well, I thought.

Perhaps it's me, but I still don't get what's so offensive about this thread? A tendency to wander around subjects and develop ideas isn't exactly unusual on this Forum. No-one is counting angels on pins.

I normally read Cup Alloys posts with considerable interest but today's contribution has zero value. It doesn't address the question or explain what's wrong with the answers. Worse, the Horse and Water comment suggests the writer has a low opinion of forum intelligence: is that the official view of Cup Alloys the business, or just an individual's unfortunate choice of words? Hard to accept the latter given it's followed by 'The Last Post' gibe.

Dave

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For those still in possession of some curiosity ...

Those ‘in power’ would appear to be the American Welding Society, whose ‘ruling’ is given here:

**LINK**

https://www.esabna.com/euweb/oxy_handbook/589oxy19_1.htm

MichaelG.

For jewellery fabrication I use all of those except the enamelling solder.

The good thing that many newcomers to jewellery soldering don't realise is that solder can be quite forgiving, and if you're careful and have an appropriate torch/burner you can do multiple successive solder joints even when very close together using a single "hardness" of solder.

For example the cluster and collet settings shown in the images were made using twenty-four and ten successive solder joints respectively, and hard solder was used in all cases. The only time I switched to easy solder was to solder the completed collet into the fabricated ring shank.

Someone recently asked somewhere why solders come in different thicknesses. I don't know whether this has been answered yet, but my reply would be to say that apart from the obvious fact that different sized workpieces need solder fillets in proportion to their size, and a choice of solder thickness makes achieving this more convenient, there is also the identification issue: fortunately extra easy, easy, medium and hard all have their own specific dimensions, so unless you are careless and pick up the wrong solder you never ruin a fabricated collet, for example, by inadvertently creating it with easy and then trying to join it to your shank with hard. I've said solder can be forgiving, but it's not that forgiving.

Edited By Bill Phinn on 21/01/2020 18:09:19

Swiftly followed by a post attempting to demolish your own position, I thought

The whole argument is built on ignorance of the actual etymology of 'braze/'brazing' which has nothing to do with brass, but comes from an old French word for (wait for it) - soldering, that itself evolved from words relating to exposure to heat. So it's closer to braising steak than brass.

The word 'brass' itself' is an English-only word that may have it's origins by different routes, perhaps Swedish brasa (fire) so possibly shared roots are the reason for the similarity.

Neil

One of the differences is that so-called Bronze Welding traditionally uses a rod with 9-10% of Nickel in it. I use Sifbronze No. 3 for this process. As well as motorcycle and bicycle frames, this process is the traditional jointing method on racing car spaceframes. My space framed Avatar car is largely put together with Nickel Bronze.

As another poster noted earlier, Bronze Welding lays a bead around a joint. The process involves heating the joint with an OA torch with a big slightly carburising flame, laying a blob of Nickel Bronze, moving the torch slightly to 'sweat' the existing blob forward at the root and then depositing another blob -rinse and repeat; the key thing is not to overheat the joint and cause the bronze to run. There's a video of an expert piece of work here.

[url]**LINK**[/url]

BTW, not all brazing rods contain Zinc. For TIG brazing, I use Sifbronze No. 8 which is Zinc free. using any Zinc bearing rods with TIG contaminate the electrode with nasty white gunk.

This is misleadingly put. What I should have said is different sized workpieces need different amounts of solder to achieve adequate penetration of the joint, and having a choice of solder thickness makes achieving this more convenient.

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I stand corrected [and thus informed] ... except for the inconvenient point that if brazing means soldering; where does the high temperature distinction in the AWS definition come from ?

MichaelG.

Edited By Michael Gilligan on 21/01/2020 21:02:12

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Sorry, Neil ... I really can’t see that.

I had answered Chris’s question ... and then expressed a personal opinion, with the clear acknowledgement that it was outwith current terminology.

The two posts are entirely consistent.

MichaelG.

Edited By Michael Gilligan on 21/01/2020 21:17:42