Originally posted in the Orchid Forum 07/31/2008

When soldering granules to either a curved or flat surface, I give the granules a landing pad to settle into. It's a project I give students during my five-day workshops designed to help them do two things: gain confidence in soldering gold and worry less about how much it costs.

Step 1 Find a round ball bur that matches the diameter of your granule. Measure both with calipers to ensure that they are within .5mm of each other.

Step 2 Very carefully grind a small concave area to match the convex surface area of your granule.

Step 3 Flow a tiny, and I mean minuscule, chip of solder into the concave surface. This allows maximum contact between the two surfaces, which means they will stick together very securely. Think of trying to solder a beach ball onto the floor. The contact point is very small, but grinding a receptor spot creating maximum fit will make those tiny spheres stick beautifully. That’s the tip of my solder pick below, by the way.

Step 4 When you place your granule on this area, once the solder flows, it will suck the granule right into the parent metal. You can't get lazy with this, you have to be persistent and make every dip exactly the same to create strong connections.