Congratulations to our latest Student of the Week-Barbara Clayton. She finished this piece during our July Intensives. I worked with Barbara some of the time on this and it was a perfect project to deepen our student’s understanding of the principals of soldering.
She first tried to solder the bezel down by heating the whole piece. That is where I came in. This is a common misconception I have discussed in this blog before. In a large piece such as this bracelet, trying to heat the whole piece inevitably doesn’t work. Too much of the heat dissipates during the process and the soldering area never quite gets hot enough, while the solder becomes oxidized. What works well on a piece like this is positioning our large flame (tip #1 Smith acetylene and atmospheric oxygen ) on the bracelet underneath where the bezel is positioned and blast away. You want to keep the flame directly on the area beneath your bezel and solder, don’t waste your time doing any circling. It is to your advantage to get the soldering area hot as fast as possible. We use paste flux in these situations since it can hold up to these large amounts of heat and keep absorbing the oxygen to prevent oxidation of your solder. Once Barbara got the hang of this technique, she successfully soldered down her bezel and everything came together beautifully. The more students understand the underlying principals of their techniques, the more successful they become. The principle in this case being: As hot as possible as fast as possible. Well Done, Barbara!
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What a great cuff and thanks for the information on soldering a cuff !