{"id":1287,"date":"2014-02-04T21:06:25","date_gmt":"2014-02-05T05:06:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blackcap.name\/blog\/new\/?p=1287"},"modified":"2014-02-04T21:07:50","modified_gmt":"2014-02-05T05:07:50","slug":"copper-phosphorus-brazing-rod-great-stuff","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blackcap.name\/blog\/new\/?p=1287","title":{"rendered":"Copper-Phosphorus Brazing Rod: Great Stuff"},"content":{"rendered":"

I ran across this page<\/a> a couple weeks ago. The rub is that jewelry-supply places only sell copper solder in insane quantities (basically, a near-lifetime supply for a mere hobbyist). I would have already ordered a small amount of it, anyhow.<\/p>\n

Then I got to thinking. I’ve noticed this item<\/a> at my local hardware store, in the torch section. Its ingredients list is basically the same as the copper jewelers’ solder. That it’s called “brazing rod” is no big deal: what jewelers call “soldering” is the same operation that plumbers call “brazing”. The per-unit price is a bit steep for those small retail packs, but it’s a good way for me to see if the stuff works well for me without having to buy a lifetime supply.<\/p>\n

And indeed it does work well. The color doesn’t match copper wire exactly, but it’s a lot<\/em> closer match than bright white silver solder. It flows well without flux, too\u2026 provided you heat it sufficiently. (You need to get things to 1400\u00b0F\/760\u00b0C or so, i.e. cherry-red-hot, for it to flow readily, but with a little patience a propane torch can do this.) Those hardware store rods are at the upper end of thickness for jewelry use, but usable they are.<\/p>\n

And it turns out that if you look around a little, you can find packages of such rods<\/a> at about half the cost per pound of the jeweler’s solder. So I’ll probably order some. It’s still a lifetime supply, but one purchased at less cost to me.<\/p>\n

If you’re tempted to do the same thing, be sure you’re ordering the 1\/16″ rods. Even those are a tad on the thick end for jewelry use (and really may be too much for fine jewelry; I’m using them on largish pendants where I don’t mind a little excess). The typical size is 1\/8″ diameter, which is simply way too big for any jewelry use.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I ran across this page a couple weeks ago. The rub is that jewelry-supply places only sell copper solder in insane quantities (basically, a near-lifetime supply for a mere hobbyist). I would have already ordered a small amount of it, anyhow. Then I got to thinking. I’ve noticed this item at my local hardware store, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1287","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-metalworking"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blackcap.name\/blog\/new\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1287","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blackcap.name\/blog\/new\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blackcap.name\/blog\/new\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blackcap.name\/blog\/new\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blackcap.name\/blog\/new\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1287"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blackcap.name\/blog\/new\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1287\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blackcap.name\/blog\/new\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1287"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blackcap.name\/blog\/new\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1287"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blackcap.name\/blog\/new\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1287"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}