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My Wife's hair straightener broke, after I took it apart i noticed that a connection broke to one of the heating elements so it never heated up. These heat up to 350F.

The solder joint will be on the heating element.

How can I keep my solder joint from melting?

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Is it actually soldered? Often those are crimped or even welded. Lead free solders have a slightly higher melting point, but probably not enough to give confidence in that application. There are much higher temperature solders (silver brazes) but they require very different techniques. – Chris Stratton Aug 12 '12 at 16:45
The other connection looks to be soldered on, but i could be mistaken. – Steve Aug 12 '12 at 17:01
I was thinking of soldering it on and applying thermal adhesive around the joint to keep the connection in place. It wont be ideal but probably best i can do with my tools – Steve Aug 12 '12 at 17:02
The metal is probably from a kind that won't stick to solder anyway and if it sticks, it will very likely melt while using it. You can try though, just remember you're dealing with mains power and your wife's health. So keep it safe. – jippie Aug 12 '12 at 17:43
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You can build a basic "spot welder" with little more than a suitably large capacitor and some contacts. You MAY be able to spot weld the wires. – Russell McMahon Aug 12 '12 at 18:24
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2 Answers

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If you have the space on the connectors (a picture would help) you can simply bolt the connection together. You may need a length of heavy gauge stranded wire and a crimp terminal to make it reach. If you don't have the space to drill a hole and place bolt, then the welding may be your best bet.

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Spot welding may meet your need.
You can make a basic spot welder with little more than a large capacitor or few.

The photo below is from here

enter image description here

A "real" spot welder can be made with a microwave oven transformer as seen here.

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