TIG on silver?

It is possible. It works on Silver, Gold, and Platinum, but...

In the spectrum of TIG welding, I would put precious metals at the top in difficulty.

They all share copper's heat conduction and low melting temp problems. They conduct heat very well, so you end up heating the whole piece from one spot, and since they actually have fairly low melting temps (compared to steel) when they melt, they melt really fast and liquid.

It can make it very hard to control. Silver melts around 2000 deg F depending on Alloy. A TIG Arc is around 16000 degF. See the problem?

The more alloyed he metal is the easier it is to weld since the thermal conductivity goes way down.

Hence why silicon bronze is so much easier to TIG weld than pure copper.

So a low carrat gold or silver would be much easier to deal with than pure metals.

I have successfully silver soldered my glasses frame back together using my TIG, but I then I am a bit odd that way.

how do you silver solder (or braze for that matter) using a TIG? no matter how low an amperage setting you use, i'd imagine that the TIG arc would either pit the base metal or, at the very least, boil off the filler.

granted,i have never tried using a TIG for soldering/brazing.

maybe its my mixup?

-tony

ps.. Ernie.. you some kinda welding genius? thanks for all the great input (on my and others' questions.. i'm learning alot fast)

to TIG weld silver? (for jewellry and small sculptures)

It takes a really low amp and good torch control. You use the arc heat to wash the metal. The nice bit is it takes no flux.

Not genius, I just have no social life to speak of. I spend way too much time figuring this stuff out so I can teach my students and use it myself.