Soldering Goes Well

Soldering complete

I meant to post these images up last week after my jewellery lesson on the 29th January, but I didn’t get the time. So I’m posting them up now so that you can continue to see the development of my first ever locket prototype.

After spending ages sanding and filing and cutting all the seperate components, I was ready to solder. I’d learnt a new technique to hold the domes in place whilst soldering, which I wrote about here, and after practicing this quite a lot, the time came to work on the actual piece. Amazingly it all went very smoothly. Here’s the first dome getting prepared for soldering:

 

First I marked out a circle onto the copper plate:

Marking out where to place the dome

 

I then checked the positioning of the dome and drew on a small marker line on both the components so I knew how they should be lined up.

Marking out the positioning

 

I’ve also scored two lines coming off the circle – this is where I need to cut the metal for my hinge plate.

Scoring the metal

 

The copper stitches are all done and the dome is held securely in place.

Cutting stitches in the copper

 

The solder goes on evenly spaced.

Positioning the solder

 

Birds eye view…

Positioning the solder

 

The solder flowed well, but it looks like I used too much. I thought I’d cut it small enough and was paranoid there wasn’t enough.

Soldering complete

 

Here’s a view of the inside…

Inside View

 

I soldered the other pieces together and again think I’ve used too much solder!

Soldering complete

 

The piercing process – cutting closely to the edge.

Cutting off the excess

 

And here’s one side of the locket – dome and hinge plate – ready for filing and sanding.

Nicely trimmed

 

Two domes cut out – notice that the one on the right has less to file away – I was being overly cautious with the first one and now have more work to do to finish it off.

Both domes cut

 

A better cleaner cut.

Nicely cut out

 

A view of the insides

And a view of the insides

 

The filing begins.

The filing begins

 

Lots of work still to do…

Lovely