Silver soldering advice

[Stuart Giles]

Nobody seems to have mentioned that silver solder is available in a range of melting points. If you imagine soldering a tankard, you would use the highest for the side seam, the middle for the base, and the lowest for the handle. So you can chose the one most suitable for the job in hand. Generally called "Hard, Medium, and soft" although I have heard one called "Enamelling"

Agreed.
If you want to learn how to silver solder this book is good
https://www.arceurotrade.co.uk/Catalogue/Books/Soldering-and-Brazing-WPS9?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIgsnx5Ozx6QIVU4BQBh2gPAlmEAQYAiABEgKwJfD_BwE

And as others have said don't fool about with DIY store torches or small canisters that end up costing a fortune.
Buy a redundant oxy-acetylene set - a BOC Portapak is good. They are not expensive.  Acetylene is the expensive part so run it on oxy-propane using oxygen from Hobbyweld and propane from multiple places.
Great for brazing, silver soldering and heating up stuff that won't budge. The only downside is that you can't gas weld with oxy-propane, but if you are struggling with silver soldering I suppose that gas welding is still a fair way in the distance.

Charles

I agree with Charles, It shouldn't be difficult to find a secondhand BOC Portapak trolley with hoses etc. as BOC have put their cylinder rent up to usurious levels. Propane is cheaper, but Acetylene is so much more versatile and can produce a more focussed flame in my experience. I've now gone over to Albee for the Acetylene and use Adams gas for my oxygen. There's no rent I just paid the cylinder (apparently returnable) deposits, these work out to be about the equivalent of 2 years BOC rent. The gas works out to be a bit more than BOC, but unless you're a heavy user, it still works out massively cheaper than BOC. I did the same move dumping BOC for the Argomix MIG gas and Pure Argon for my TIG set several years ago and have saved hundreds of pounds in rent since then.