As a professional metal smith and lapidary artist, I have been a customer of Rio Grande for over two decades. Up until the last year, the service was great. I have had several issues with the materials that I received in the past couple of orders. I purchased a group of silver chains to find that when they ran out of chain, they just wired on a couple inches of scrap chain to make up for the length (see photos), I did not notice this until I had put a patina on the chain and started to feed it through the bail of the pendant. The next issue was with the paste solder that I ordered, I started using this particular solder about 6 years ago and have had excellent results from it. I was able to cut processing and build time by two thirds using s the paste solder, not to mention that it is cleaner than any other options available. Because of this, I have been using it exclusively for six years. The last order of paste solder was noticeably different in color and texture than what I have been getting, even though it is under the same listing, order number and description. After several attempts at using this new bottle of paste solder, the results were extremely different. I contacted Rio with these issues and after some explanation of why the solder is different, they claim that they have had problems with the previously supplied paste solder so they discontinued from that supplier and went to a different supplier. I was told that replacement solder and chain would be in the mail the following day. So, two weeks later, 7 emails and still no replacement in the mail, I have had 7 pieces of jewelry fail at the solder joint causing me to have to completely rebuild each piece. I have wasted numerous hours going back and forth with Rio trying to figure out a solution to the solder issues, with no positive results. I have requested to be put in contact with the original supplier of the paste solder and was told “nope, we don’t share information about suppliers!”It has become painfully clear that Rio has little to no care about the quality of the product they supply, only the profits they make by cutting corners and screwing the little guy! This is a prime example of an “American” company that would rather support China garbage business than the herd working citizens of the US! It is truly a shame that the general economy is driven by quantity over quality! So when you are buying the garbage that says “made in China” remember that you are supporting a communist society that cares exclusively about money over anything else!