My adventure in soldering rings.....

[pjstevko]

So I have a couple small surface irons that need new rings and hooks so instead of paying a landing a couple bucks to do it I did what anyone on this site would do,  I spent about $150 to buy all the stuff to do it myself! I bought a ring kit from Bryan and some smooth jaw parallel pliers and a butane touch from Amazon.

Today I spent an hour and gave it a try on several sized rings. I used the black flux and thicker silver wire. I had a lot of failures but a couple turned out good.

I had a hard time getting the biggest wire rings edges to match up well. I'm assuming the rings were cut with bolt cutters because the edges were bent and angled. I had an easier time lining up everything on the smaller sized rings.

Here's some pics of the equipment and my results...

[Keta]

You can use a small file to flatten the ends.  You want zero gap.

[MarkT]

You should put the ring on the jig before soldering it! 

[Bryan Young]

I'm a DIYer myself so I will commonly take this route. I suppose I should come up with a video to show you how I solder or braze the jumper rings.

But before that, I guess one was close the jump rings.  Are used to duck bill pliers when I either in and Twista jump rings in opposite direction to close the gap between the open ends of the jump rings.  Commonly, the rings clothes with a little snap as a two ends meet together. I'm not sure if you're getting this type of action PJ when you're closing the rings. There is usually a little gap if any when the jump rings close. I didn't take a toothpick and apply the flux to the ends of the jump rings that you have shown in your photo. And then heat up that Flux so it boils away and it cleans the ends of the jumper rings ready for solder. Once cleaned, The jump ring is heated till the ends are red hot and that solder is applied with a little gap as you have done.  It appears he has soldering really well but I'm not sure if there's a gap in your jump rings or not.

[gstours]

Here is my findings for the court... Firstly to get the gap to be tight, twist the ring offset just enough to over close the gap after installing it on the lure/hook/swivel/?   then twist the ring back to align it,  this way it will have some pressure and fully close the gap.  then reclean, apply flux then heat/solder. 
   Until confidence that comes with practice just test the part with a strain.  Why guess?  No one is watching right now, right?   
   

[Brendan]

 I'm 0 for 1 trying to figure this out. Like the post. I have a Tady 2A I believe that I once called my fish finder, put an oversized split ring on it and haven't caught anything on it. Even in Bay Of LA. 

[pjstevko]

I'm a DIYer myself so I will commonly take this route. I suppose I should come up with a video to show you how I solder or braze the jumper rings.

But before that, I guess one was close the jump rings.  Are used to duck bill pliers when I either in and Twista jump rings in opposite direction to close the gap between the open ends of the jump rings.  Commonly, the rings clothes with a little snap as a two ends meet together. I'm not sure if you're getting this type of action PJ when you're closing the rings. There is usually a little gap if any when the jump rings close. I didn't take a toothpick and apply the flux to the ends of the jump rings that you have shown in your photo. And then heat up that Flux so it boils away and it cleans the ends of the jumper rings ready for solder. Once cleaned, The jump ring is heated till the ends are red hot and that solder is applied with a little gap as you have done.  It appears he has soldering really well but I'm not sure if there's a gap in your jump rings or not.

I watched a lot of videos so I had a basic understanding of how it should be done. I closed the rings as best I could so that the cut ends were touching when I bent them back. The thing I noticed on the largest rings was one end of the ring was bent slightly towards the center opening of the ring when I bent the ends back together. Basically I couldn't get the up/down part of the rings to line up as good as the left/right sides. It's hard to explain but I'll take a pics when I'm back home next weekend....

[Keta]

Not sure what you are saying but sometimes you have to give the rings a twist.

[jtwill98]

I watched a lot of videos so I had a basic understanding of how it should be done. I closed the rings as best I could so that the cut ends were touching when I bent them back. The thing I noticed on the largest rings was one end of the ring was bent slightly towards the center opening of the ring when I bent the ends back together. Basically I could get the up/down part of the rings to line up as good as the left/right sides. It's hard to explain but I'll take a pics when I'm back home next weekend....

I think I understand what you're saying. What might help in squaring up the ring ends is to run a fine metal file or a Dremel cut-off disk between the ends before the final squeeze closing the gap.

This would ensure a tight square fit.  However, while making it look good, it also would slow down the process.

[Keta]

Good idea on the Dremel cut off wheel.

[jurelometer]

I think PJ means that the rings are no longer round.  Check to see if the rings came that way, or if you are bending them out of round.  You need to open and close like a hinge, and not bend one end inwards or outwards. 

I am not so good at this myself, but I can get some good brazed joints mixed in with some clunkers.  Here is some stuff that I have learned:

1. You want a capillary action to pull rather braze through the gap. It is the size of the gap that is important for strength.  From what I have read, edges actually touching is not good (less surface area to bond and less flow), and too big a gap is no good either.  Ideal is about half the thickness of a piece of paper (0.0015 in).  We won't ever get that exact, but if the ring ends are not flat and parallel, the gap can get pretty large for too much of the joint.

2.  Too much flux plus a big gap can lead to flux being trapped inside the joint.  You want flux in  the gap, and a thin coating on each side as far as you want the braze to travel. That one photo shows a lot more flux than I would use, and not far enough past the gap.  I thin the black flux with water once it gets old and thick.

3. Use enough  braze to fully fill the gap,  cover the edges,  and go down the ring a bit. Most of the joints look a bit starved in your photos.

4. Don't heat too hot for too long.  The flux makes an oxygen free environment and also is a wetting agent to help the flow.  I would not burn the flux off first and then braze. 

Focus the tip of the blue flame right at the gap.  The brazing material will want to flow first to the hottest point.  Once the flux turns clear (this means that you have almost reached ideal temp), move the silver wire toward the gap.  The stainless should now just be starting to turn red.  If you time it just right, the silver flows right in and makes a perfect clean joint that  needs no touch up.

The heat timing is the tough part for me.  For real welders, this is probably a piece of cake.  If I screw this part up, I find it is better to start from scratch with a fresh ring than try to rescue a botched braze.

5. Don't rush to the quench.  It can lead to cracks/weakening (differences in thermal expansion of the materials). The silver has to be fully hardened first.  Austenitic stainless doesn't stiffen like regular steel on a fast quench, so that big blast of steam is not doing what we think.  We just need some higher heat and water to clear off any of the water soluble flux residue.

6.  Don't worry about it too much.  Test a few, and you will be able to see what good enough looks like.  If you did a bend /break test between your ring ands a swivel or hook, you might be surprised on what fails first.

A bit more in depth here on brazing:
https://lucasmilhaupt.com/EN/Brazing-Academy/Brazing-Fundamentals.htm

-J

[natch!]

 I got my kit from Bryan on Monday. My first project was replacing hooks and rings on some old, successful surface irons. I got good results on the first try for each of them.
 I noticed the rings have one pretty flat and one bevelled side at the opening. I used a Dremel cut-off wheel to flatten the bevel, loaded on the hook and jig, joined the ring, flux, heat, solder, Go!
 Next, I decided to ring some 2/0 Gamakatsu heavy duty bait hooks. This brought the challenge. I ended up with solder blobs nearly filling the ring, solder on only one side of the join, scorched rings, hooks and fingers, etc.
 Cleaning my glasses and using a bright light were good improvements. I'm experimenting with lowering the heat setting on my torch so I can use the thinner solder wire. I'm at about 50% success rate but improving.

  Jack

[pjstevko]

In an effort to get a better alignment of the ring edges to close better I bought a dremel kit to use the cutting disks.

Hopefully I'll have some time this weekend to give it another shot

[Bryan Young]

You guys can do it. I have faith in the both of you. And if I can do it, anyone can. I'm not the most coordinated person in the world but one of the least.

[alantani]

mapp gas works really well!!!