Soldering Gold Filled Wire? Simple.

Many people are under the impression that soldering gold filled wire is either very difficult or impossible. After reading the following tips, you’ll realize that’s simply not true.

First of all, what is gold filled wire exactly? Basically, it is a layer of solid gold at least 10K (.417% pure gold), 12K (50% pure gold) gold or 14K (.585% pure gold) that has been mechanically bonded with heat and pressure to a thicker piece of base metal, most commonly a brass alloy that is 90% copper and 10% brass. The gold layer is fused to the base metal, resulting in a product that has all the beauty of actual karat gold plus long lasting resistance to wear.

The base metal can sometimes cause problems when you are trying to solder. If the gold filled wire is over heated, the brass can come to the surface and cause that copper color that is so annoying.

Make sure you know how to pick solder so you control the amount of solder and where you are going to put and place it on the seam. I use either 14K extra easy solder or 10 K easy solder.

You’ll also want to remember to do the following — I practiced on jump until I got it down right. I have lots of jump rings! LOL

• Don’t heat the whole piece like you do for silver. Just heat the local area you’re soldering.
• Get the torch on and off quickly — do not let it sit there and don’t overheat it! Overheating causes the brass inside to come to the surface, which creates the copper color you don’t want.
• Use a fairly low flame (but not so low that it takes a long time to get it up to temp), and heat until the solder flows and then pickle your piece as usual.
• I often solder one side, then flip it over and apply more solder. For some reason with gold filled metal, the solder doesn’t want to pull through completely like silver does.
• When you are finished, you can file or sand if you need to, but not too much, as you don’t want to go through the gold layer to the brass.
• Polish as usual. Buffing with red rouge will get rid of any residual oxidation.

Oh No! You held the torch in one place a little too long and now your beautiful seam is a pinky, coppery color!

What to do?? Here are simple ways to get rid of the raised copper on gold filled wire and sheet.

• Super pickle works the fastest (but you still have to sand and polish).
• Half pickle-half hydrogen peroxide, HOT: You can watch the mix turn blue as the copper dissolves into the solution. It must be hot! It only lasts a short while, like 10 minutes or so, because the peroxide just turns to water. You can then dump it right back into your pickle pot.