Tuesday, August 12, 2008

Soldering: They key is to not touch the hot part!

It has been raining a whole lot lately. Rain and creativity have always gone hand in hand for me. That might have something to do with the fact that I don't much feel like going out on rainy days so I would rather stay in and make something! So I decided that this weekend was the weekend that I would try my hand at soldering jewelry. I fired up the soldering iron, cut up my copper foil tape into strips, clipped a few sticks of solder, and got my flux all ready to go. I had my spot all set up like a pro. Then I very clumsily ran my hand into the smoldering hot tip of the soldering iron! Ouch! Regardless, the show must go on and so it did. It was jolly good fun but here's an important tip for those of you who are thinking about trying this out at home: Don't touch the iron because it sizzles your skin like eggs on the pavement on an August afternoon! Yikes. Another great tip is to head on over to your local Canadian Tire (if you're Canadian eh?) and check out the clamps section in one of the tool isles. They sell this really neato little clamp with a suction cup at the bottom which is perfect for holding your piece as you solder. They'll run you about $2 CAD.

I also went ahead and tried soldering around some etched mirror pendants I was dying to get started. It was a great success! High five!

I even got so bold as to dable with textures such as little droplets of solder on the seahorse, the fish, and the ship pendants. I see much more of this kind of stuff in my future.

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