First started just trying to figure out how high I had to go with the heat to melt the silver solder. Started at low settings and just worked my way up. At first I thought the metal would "liquify" but eventually realized that unless you fill up the pot completely, the solder will just pool into a little blob. Realized that the best thing is just to max out the dial to get the solder nice and melted.
First had to figure out the "bird nesting" technique, which ended up being simply tweezing it with pliers. Seemed to work just fine.
Then I dripped flux on the nipple, but didn't realize that the flux worked its way down the cable when I inverted it. So when I dipped it into the solder, the silver actually "crept" up the cable, making it very brittle. First lesson learned: gotta be careful with the flux.
Second time around, I only heated the solder enough to make it soft. Did a better job with the flux this time, but when I dipped it, a whole glob of solder stuck to the end instead of "flowing". Second lesson learned: max heat.
Third time was the charm. Did a good bird's nest, was careful with the flux, and heated the solder to max before dipping. Ended up with what seemed to be a very strong joint.
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