How to Fuse Silver Jump Rings

In this hub, we are going to talk about fusing silver rings. Now fusing is an alternative to soldering and requires no filler metal i.e. solder. It is a good way to get a really strong joint if you do it right.

Here is where we get into a few issues. Standard sterling silver cannot be fused, well, I should say it is very difficult to fuse. When heating up sterling silver, the 2.5-7.5 percent of copper used to make the silver stronger starts to oxidize from the presence of oxygen. It starts to tarnish and a whole lot faster because it is hot. The tarnish forms a barrier that isolates the metal and prevents flow. The only way to get around that is to use an evacuated environment. Well, flames don’t like to burn without oxygen and it gets hard to fuse sterling silver.

The way around this issue is to use fine silver. Fine silver has no copper in it and fuses readily. There is one problem with fine silver and that is its strength. For decorative applications fine silver is perfect, but for load bearing applications like chains fine silver leaves a lot to be desired.

That brings us to an alloy called Argentium sterling silver. It can be as hard as standard sterling and has tarnish resistance because of an added material called germanium. Since I’m not writing this hub on Argentium properties I’ll leave it at that and write another hub on types of silver in the future.

If you want to fuse your jump rings and make really strong jewelry be sure to use fine silver or better yet Argentium.

Below are the tools I use. This really proves that anyone can fuse silver jump rings. I have a bunch of expensive equipment, but I find that I can get by really well using a bunch of cheaper tools.

Firebrick($5), pencil torch($20), safety glasses($1), tweezers($2), 2 pliers($20), a cup of water(Free!) and sometimes a magnifying glass($5).

To start: Make sure the closures of your jump rings are as good as you can get. The closer the better the silver will join. I cut my own rings with a jewelers saw so I get nice flush cuts, but for smaller gauge wire diagonal snips are fine. After the sides are lined up, set them on the firebrick. The picture shows 16g and 20g AWG wire rings.

2: Light the pencil torch. I tune it to about a ½ inch inner cone. With this torch I get a nice neutral flame at ½ inch.

3: Heat up the ring until it is a dull red. You won’t believe how hard it was to take these pictures while I was doing that. Make it look just like the picture and you should be good. Make sure the whole ring is the same color.

4: Hold the flame on the seam of the ring. Now don’t loose me here, during the time you hold the flame at the seam, the whole ring will appear to “get wet”. That’s the best I can describe it. It’s when the metal hits the temperature where it will flow and the seam will join. See the shine in the picture? That’s the “wetting” effect. After you see the “wetting” happen you need to take away the heat or the ring will melt into a pool of failure. Don’t get mad, this is a process where a good “feel” is needed to succeed. It will take a few times.

5: Repeat the process for the remainder of rings you have.

6: After you have all the rings fused, cool them off in water. See how the Argentium ring is not tarnished like a standard sterling ring would be after applying that much heat?

7. Inspect the joint. You will know right away if you did it right. Give it a few tugs with a pair of pliers. Look at that! Now you have a solid ring to weave and use in any project you desire! With a little polishing, that ring will never even look like it was cut.

So there you go. You fused a ring. Now go and make some cool jewelry. If there are any questions, please comment and I will answer.