The Right Tools for the Job?

They say a bad work ”person” blames their tools, which I do agree with to an extent, but also having the right tool for the job can often make all the difference as to how difficult the task is, and in turn “sometimes” to quality of the outcome.

Earlier today, I ran out of gas mid-melt. I thought I had a spare gas bottle but couldn’t find it, so decided to continue melting down my client’s silver with a small hand torch.

I’m not sure I’d ever really melted more than tiny granules with this kind of torch as at university, we used “proper” torches and so when I set up on my own afterwards, I naturally bought myself a Sievert propane torch. This was followed a few years later by a Smiths Little torch, which I remember at the time finding how much easier it made soldering as I had a hotter but more controlled flame.

So anyway, back to today’s job…

I did manage to melt and pour the 10ish gram ingot of silver with my small hand torch…on the second attempt…but it took me flipping ages!

The small ”crème brûlée” torches that loads of jewellery makers use all the time are fine for small soldering jobs, but they work with butane, which is never going to get as hot as a mixture of oxygen and propane.

Sterling Silver melts at 890°C and gold around 1000°C depending on the carat, and I was using a “Max Flame Pro” which is supposed to get up to 1,300°C. So in theory it should work, but it’s pretty much working at its maximum capacity. I had to hold the torch in “exactly” the right spot for quite a long time to get 10g of silver to a good rolling melt suitable to pour into my ingot mould. I found this pretty difficult to do compared to using my Smiths torch (which gets up to around 3000°C) and it made me think about why attempting this process could seem so daunting to some, especially if they’re self taught or have only every experienced learning jewellery making at a village hall type of class.

So I know I’m not a bad work person, but today at least, I am blaming my tools for making a task harder than it needed to be!

Oh, and of course after I’d spent all that time struggling with the not really hot enough hand torch, I remembered the safe place where I’d put my spare gas bottle!!