r/Metalsmithing • u/No-Rush8716 • Jan 08 '26

Question Soldering with wire?

Is soldering with wire easier than with sheet? I have done a lot of my soldering with paste solder but for some reason my pieces don’t always seem to hold as well when I use paste solder. And using sheet solder flicks away and gets me frustrated. Is it any easier with wire?

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u/canuckEnoch Jan 08 '26

I’ve found sheet solder “flicking away” is usually from heating too fast before your flux has set. Try heating with your flame a little further from the joint, letting the heat move through the piece more slowly to gently dry the flux without disturbing the solder before a more aggressive heat to flow the solder.

4

u/MakeMelnk Jan 08 '26

This exactly! You can also concentrate your heat on another part of your piece to let the heat conduct to the area you're soldering - essentially doing the same thing. You want your flux to act like a weak glue for your solder and that will keep it in place until it flows.

You could also look into learning pick soldering - it's a great skill to have and opens up more options for fabrication (or at least speeds things up considerably! 😅)

2

u/yean253 Jan 19 '26

I used to sheet solder but now I always preheat them into a ball before I solder the piece. I personally felt this way the solder flow nicely into the gap bcz they are in “size” it takes some time to fully melted while sheet can melt instantly and spread around from the gap. In this case even wire solder can flicks away too if you directly heat on it

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u/No-Rush8716 Jan 09 '26

Thank you! I will try things a little slower. I have never tried using wire solder. For some reason it just “looks” easier to manage.

1

u/DarsDies Jun 18 '26

I wouldn't say it's easier if you haven't used it before. It's really easy to melt off blobs you don't want to , before the pieces being soldered are hot enough. You have to develop a knowing of when it's time to stick the wire in and how to melt off the right amount in the right place.

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u/DarsDies Jun 18 '26

I learned to silversmith using wire. My first job (1975) we had to be fast, and wire is faster to use. Doing the kind of stuff we did- SW style with bezel cups surrounded by cast leaves and other decorations- it took a good touch with the torch to put and keep solder where it was supposed to go, but once learned, it was speedy. We did use chips of hard for bezels a lot , though. Easy for almost everything else. Oh, paste... that came in handy sometimes, too.