Friday 17 July 2009

Soldering . . .

o

. . . always makes me a little nervous, until I get started. 'Fire equals danger' seems a pretty sound basis to live by so it's been quite a change to get to the stage where 'fire equals just being a bit careful with a fire extinguisher on stand-by'.

I did buy a book or two on jewellery making without soldering but found it impossible to achieve the effects I want to. And since I've worked hard on getting better at this melting-solder-to-stick-silver-together lark, then it does make sense that I use my 'talent' (very loose meaning of that word!) when I think it needs using.

4 comments:

  1. That looks very pretty! I'd be a danger too and really wouldn't trust myself.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I'm always careful not to relax too much with the flame around! Glad you like the silver-work. It's a design I've been working on for ages now . . . !

    ReplyDelete
  3. are you soldering on a brick? I solder on a charcoal block and what i find annoying is that it burns away leaving curved surfaces which makes it tricky when I need to solder something that needs to remain flat!

    ReplyDelete
  4. I solder on a brick, yes, on top of a fireproof sheet. I've not worked on charcoal although I can imagine, given how soft it is, it 'dents' very easily.

    The brick can dent too, if you yank something away when it's kind of fused to the brick with flux, then you get a hollow forming. But I also find the flux builds up on the surface and so it gets very uneven very quickly.

    ReplyDelete

Thanks so much for leaving a comment here - I always love to read them and I do my best to reply to them all, either here or by email.