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| Soldered pendants from Stampington & Co. |
Does a soldering tool count as a power tool? A while back I wrote in one of my IMMT!M features that I got into beading because it didn't require special tools, then I found myself coveting a Dremel drill when I saw what other crafters were doing with them.
Although I grew up in a household of three brothers and a sister who was handier than all of them combined, this was still the eras of Girls Take Home Ec Boys Take Shop Class and I never learned how to use the simplest tools, like a soldering iron. (Is it called an "iron" or a "gun"? See how clueless I am?) There's been nothing stopping me learning how as an adult save for lack of motivation, and I happened to marry a man whose lack of skills matched mine. We do our best to support the local handyman industry.
I knew lots of jewelry makers used this technique, but I always assumed soldering to be part of advanced metalsmithing that I would need to take classes in. (I have to confess, I was much more interested in learning why it is pronounced "sah-der" instead of "sole-der" than how it was done.)
But whoa, Eva Maria Keiser just posted this video on soldering on her blog a few weeks ago.
I'm sure soldering is more complicated than this demo makes it look, but the fact is, I had never even seen soldering done. This looks easy! And look how girly this soldering kit looks!
So maybe I'll give it a go. Please share your soldering experiences too!
Soldering is not difficult. Soldering with a torch and having a nice finish takes practice. I have not practiced. I never tried to solder with an iron.
ReplyDeleteMy hubs & I took a FunEd class on how to make a kaleidoscope. We had to put some kind of metallic tape around the edges of three pieces of stained glass and then solder those together into a triangular tube. It was so easy. Who knew? And fun. And guess what our girls got for Christmas that year!
ReplyDeleteI have soldered and what you can't see in the video is that she makes it look easy because she has practiced. Soldering is all about practice. At first your work will tend to be blobby. You need to get good at estimating how much solder you need and "running" it along the edge to look smooth. Small pieces are easier in that there is less space to get blobby, but hard in that you are working in a small space.
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