Maybe for some.
I’ve made a few attempts to learn to solder.
Last year was a one day class on soldering electronics. At that time I didn’t know it was a different thing to soldering metal. It was disappointing in other ways, the organiser agreed and refunded the cost, so all will remain unblogged and unidentified.
In January this year was a week with Christian Hall (7-Jan-2018). I was out of my depth, nervous of the torch, and the one soldered join I brought back was basically the tutor demonstrating and me watching.
In February I tried a metal smithing class with Jane Tadrist (18-Feb-2018). That time my little tealight was soldered, but I now admit sadly that Jane did the first seam as a demonstration to the class, and the second so at least the thing would be done before we ran out of time.
The time spent with Christian and Jane was certainly not wasted nor without learning. It was just without me, hands-on, soldering.
So over the weeks of March I bought a soldering kit, a heap of associated paraphernalia including air extractor and fire extinguisher, and rearranged the garage to create a safe soldering station. Finally in April, I’ve spent time with me, hands-on, soldering.
There has been sawing and filing. There has been butt, T and even a little sweat soldering. There has been melting and balling of silver. There have been many hours finding and watching videos, and more hours reading library books – the excellently named Simple Soldering by Kate Ferrant Richbourg and Soldering Made Simple by Joe Silvera. There has been some wastage, and some metal repeatedly and brutally cut, soldered, recut, resoldered… There have been many failures and somewhat fewer not-exactly-successes.
Towards the end of the month there has been a hint of what I was originally aiming towards. The attempted sweat soldering didn’t work. Everything slipped around. Much of the solder became a “decorative element” rather than providing any structure.
-
- Attempted sweat solder
-
- Soldering about to begin
-
- As much “decoration” as structure
But I like the way it cleaned up.
Germination II
It’s reminiscent of Germination II, at a much smaller scale. Importantly, it’s something I’m comfortable exploring in a domestic environment. Plus it’s a good reminder that the soldering is a means to an end. “Good enough” is enough.
