Avoid Melting Your Project. Hot Tips for Saving Your Jewelry Creation and Keeping a Cool Head in the Process.

Everyone melts their jewelry piece when in the middle of creating their design idea from time to time. Everyone. Those with years of experience do it, too.  However, we all want to do better, be more efficient in our work -  wasting less time and material.

Here are some tips to help you melt your creations less often:

• Always focus on heating the metal, not the solder. Look to achieve a muted orange-red glow vs. a bright orange color of your metal. The latter could quickly turn your bezel or other smaller elements into a metal puddle.
• Heat the metal evenly, using the outer-most part of your flame, moving your torch slowly in circular motions over your piece.
• Concentrate the heat of the torch on the larger parts of your piece – the base, a band, for example, instead of the bezel or other smaller delicate decorations. Keep in mind that metal is conductive. Heat will travel throughout your piece from the larger elements to the smaller ones.
• As you heat your piece, move the torch closer to the blue tip of the flame. When you do this you, you will notice that the metal will change color to a bright orange-red glow. When you see this color change, put the torch flame on the joint where you put the solder.  Watch for a liquid line of solder running along/onto the seam.

• Once the solder has flowed, pull your torch away and turn it off.
• Stay focused on the goal. Yes, it sounds trite, or obvious, but sometimes it’s common for jewelry artist to start envisioning the finished piece, or other possibilities as they work and not on the task at hand. This can lead to melting a piece, too.
                                                                                                                                                                     
We hope these tips help you to keep a cool head when heating up your piece, and be more productive overall. If you want to learn more about the jewelry design process, or make specific styles, Harold Studio hosts classes every month. Learn more about them here.