Making Findings and Soldering with Sue Hennings – AGM 1992
Hazel Ovenden
Sue had on display some of her jewellery and she started by showing us the backs, for which she has some ingenious ideas, all of which are carried out prior to enamelling.
Her first demonstration was to show how she fixes the posts onto the back of earrings.
The piece to be soldered is cleaned and fluxed in the usual way as is a 2mm jump ring, (flattened a bit on one side). The jump ring is put into position and pallions of hard solder, picked up with the flux brush, are placed on the jump ring, three on top and three round it.
For the posts Sue uses 0. 8mm " P" wire, which is hardenable silver in the hardened state which will not soften when the piece is soldered and enamelled. A piece 12mm long is cut off and one end filed level; this is placed in reverse-action, soldering tweezers and the filed end fluxed. The flame is played around the area of the jump ring and at the last moment, when the solder is about to melt, the wire is positioned in the jump ring " collar" and held until the solder flows. After pickling, the post is trimmed to 10mm.