I have mentioned before that it is always a good idea to drill out your pits before you fill them with solder, and today I will show you a good reason why.
I was working on a texturing lesson (which I will post tomorrow) and I had a small pit on the surface of the area I was getting ready to texture. I decided to stick a small bur into it to see how deep it was, whether I could just texture over it, or if I was going to add a small bit of solder in the pit. Once I stuck a bur into the pit, it sunk into a cavity. I used a larger bit, and it sunk into the cavity as well. I went through two larger sized Ball Burs
It is important to clean out a pit before soldering because the impurities in the pit will not allow the solder to bond to the silver. Make sure you grind out all impurities and see a clean surface before soldering. if the pit is very small, you can get away with just adding solder, but if the pit is any larger than about 0.5mm, you will want to add a wire into the pit so you are filling the pit with silver instead of solder. I like to melt the solder onto the end of the wire first, then add Handy Flux
After this pit is filled, I used a Semi-Flush Side Cutter
Again, it is a good idea to check and drill all of your pits before you solder them, I was amazed how huge this lil’ pit turned out to be.
There ya have it, quick little tip to start out your week, I hope you have an amazing week!
Now go fill a spot in someone’s life.
Doug