Learning to solder is relatively easy. You have a soldering gun, copper foil, flux and the pieces you're going to solder. I'm learning to solder to make jewelry, pendants specifically for right now, to incorporate my Big-headed men into art for your body. I find it useful to use a vise when working with these small pieces. For my purposes, I'm using the following items:
Soldering Gun (I use a Weller 8200 family)
Silver-Gleem solder
Soldering Gun (I use a Weller 8200 family)
Silver-Gleem solder
Copper foil
Flux
Microscope slides (cut in half with a glass cutter)
Mini-pic of one of my big-headed menO-rings to attach to pendant so you can hang it on a necklace
Clean your pieces well. I've had issues with dust in the glass and if you don't catch it immediately, you're pretty screwed.
Attach the foil to pretty much anyplace you're going to want the finished metal (solder). For my purposes, I just placed my pic between the two panes of glass and added the copper foil (which has an adhesive back) around the perimeter of the glass pieces. So you get what looks like a copper framed mini-pic.
I then lightly apply flux to all of the copper foil (brush it on with a paint brush).
I then put my piece in a vise, and heat my gun, placing the solder against the tip of the gun and (once the solder starts to melt), gently gliding the solder and the gun along the edge of the copper foil. Solder hardens super fast. It's like it's melted, then snap your fingers and it's not. You have to work fast, but if you mess up, you can always just reheat the solder on the piece with the gun and it will instantly melt and harden again. It's pretty cool actually. But I've discovered you can't do it TOO frequently because your solder gun tip will melt if you use it for too long AND your solder on your piece will start to yellow because it's getting burned. AND it can end up being a globby, burry mess. In these cases (when it gets burry) I'll sand it with some sandpaper, which scratches your metal, but it actually gives it a pretty cool effect. So, if you want something perfectly shiny, obviously, don't do this. You'll just have to get really good with your soldering so you don't need to go back over it.
So that's basically it for the initial soldering process. Where I've been having issues is getting the o-rings onto the top of the piece. You need a third hand it seems. I still haven't discovered a concrete way to do this, but what is sort of working is to put a globule of the solder where you want the o-ring to be, let it harden, then using the gun in one hand and the o-ring in some tweezers or jewelry pliers in the other, place the o-ring on the globule of solder and place the gun tip inside the o-ring. The heat will melt the globule and the o-ring will "drop" into the melted solder. Quickly remove the heat and hold the o-ring for a moment until the solder rehardens. It's not perfect, but I think I just need more practice with it.
So that's that. Here's my first finished piece (that turned out decent).
Flux
Microscope slides (cut in half with a glass cutter)
Mini-pic of one of my big-headed menO-rings to attach to pendant so you can hang it on a necklace
Clean your pieces well. I've had issues with dust in the glass and if you don't catch it immediately, you're pretty screwed.
Attach the foil to pretty much anyplace you're going to want the finished metal (solder). For my purposes, I just placed my pic between the two panes of glass and added the copper foil (which has an adhesive back) around the perimeter of the glass pieces. So you get what looks like a copper framed mini-pic.
I then lightly apply flux to all of the copper foil (brush it on with a paint brush).
I then put my piece in a vise, and heat my gun, placing the solder against the tip of the gun and (once the solder starts to melt), gently gliding the solder and the gun along the edge of the copper foil. Solder hardens super fast. It's like it's melted, then snap your fingers and it's not. You have to work fast, but if you mess up, you can always just reheat the solder on the piece with the gun and it will instantly melt and harden again. It's pretty cool actually. But I've discovered you can't do it TOO frequently because your solder gun tip will melt if you use it for too long AND your solder on your piece will start to yellow because it's getting burned. AND it can end up being a globby, burry mess. In these cases (when it gets burry) I'll sand it with some sandpaper, which scratches your metal, but it actually gives it a pretty cool effect. So, if you want something perfectly shiny, obviously, don't do this. You'll just have to get really good with your soldering so you don't need to go back over it.
So that's basically it for the initial soldering process. Where I've been having issues is getting the o-rings onto the top of the piece. You need a third hand it seems. I still haven't discovered a concrete way to do this, but what is sort of working is to put a globule of the solder where you want the o-ring to be, let it harden, then using the gun in one hand and the o-ring in some tweezers or jewelry pliers in the other, place the o-ring on the globule of solder and place the gun tip inside the o-ring. The heat will melt the globule and the o-ring will "drop" into the melted solder. Quickly remove the heat and hold the o-ring for a moment until the solder rehardens. It's not perfect, but I think I just need more practice with it.
So that's that. Here's my first finished piece (that turned out decent).
