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Jun. 7th, 2019 10:21 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
camwynDrew up a list yesterday of the minimum stuff I'd need to get together if I intend to actually try jewelry soldering. Beyond the blowtorch* part, I mean.
Aside from the part where I have to ensure that my blowtorch is of a sort acceptable for use in rental housing**, it looks as if the basics I need are:
- Several pieces of fireproof tile, like the stuff used in fireplaces
- A fire extinguisher; my kitchen has one of these and when I checked last week it looked like it had the pressure indicator in the correct zone
- Safety glasses; I have a few different versions of these from when I was making soap
- A cotton or leather or other natural fiber apron, because synthetic fabrics do horrible things at high temperatures
- A kiln brick, charcoal block, or honeycomb block
- The torch itself, obviously
- A cooling cup but apparently as long as I have tweezers I can use a reasonably thick-walled coffee cup for this so nbd
- Long tweezers
- A soldering pick
- Solder paste and flux, possibly with a sticker saying 'DO NOT EAT'; long story short, I had some fun family stories to use as examples when I taught the poison response chapter of first aid class
- Pickling solution or something called Penny Brite
Pickling solution is a chemical mixture they use to remove oxidation/firescale from something that's just been soldered. The commercial stuff usually requires a heat source to work really well and there's all kinds of possibilities. Penny Brite turns out to be a 1930s invention that basically amounts to food-grade citric acid in phosphate free soap, and I've got a pound of citric acid left over from soapmaking plus I tend to buy Dr. Bronner's in fairly good-sized bottles anyway, so... rather than invest in the pickle chemicals plus a crockpot to keep them warm during use, I'll just start off using what's left of my citric acid and see if I really want to extend beyond that.
*I had an offer from my mom to use her old soldering stuff, but Mom's soldering stuff was for doing stained glass, so it was based around using a soldering iron, lead, etc. Can't do the temperatures I'd need.
**Apparently propane torches/torches with separate tanks connected by hoses invalidate a lot of apartment insurance policies, so if a renter wants to do jewelry in their home that requires a torch, they have to use something on the order of a creme brulee torch***.
***Did you know that the torches they use on, like, the Great British Baking Show for caramelizing creme brulee and browning the outside of meringues will produce flames with temperatures up to 2700 degrees Fahrenheit? I didn't. I also didn't know that the flames of your average house fire generally range between 1,000 and 2,000 Fahrenheit. Fun stuff!
Aside from the part where I have to ensure that my blowtorch is of a sort acceptable for use in rental housing**, it looks as if the basics I need are:
- Several pieces of fireproof tile, like the stuff used in fireplaces
- A fire extinguisher; my kitchen has one of these and when I checked last week it looked like it had the pressure indicator in the correct zone
- Safety glasses; I have a few different versions of these from when I was making soap
- A cotton or leather or other natural fiber apron, because synthetic fabrics do horrible things at high temperatures
- A kiln brick, charcoal block, or honeycomb block
- The torch itself, obviously
- A cooling cup but apparently as long as I have tweezers I can use a reasonably thick-walled coffee cup for this so nbd
- Long tweezers
- A soldering pick
- Solder paste and flux, possibly with a sticker saying 'DO NOT EAT'; long story short, I had some fun family stories to use as examples when I taught the poison response chapter of first aid class
- Pickling solution or something called Penny Brite
Pickling solution is a chemical mixture they use to remove oxidation/firescale from something that's just been soldered. The commercial stuff usually requires a heat source to work really well and there's all kinds of possibilities. Penny Brite turns out to be a 1930s invention that basically amounts to food-grade citric acid in phosphate free soap, and I've got a pound of citric acid left over from soapmaking plus I tend to buy Dr. Bronner's in fairly good-sized bottles anyway, so... rather than invest in the pickle chemicals plus a crockpot to keep them warm during use, I'll just start off using what's left of my citric acid and see if I really want to extend beyond that.
*I had an offer from my mom to use her old soldering stuff, but Mom's soldering stuff was for doing stained glass, so it was based around using a soldering iron, lead, etc. Can't do the temperatures I'd need.
**Apparently propane torches/torches with separate tanks connected by hoses invalidate a lot of apartment insurance policies, so if a renter wants to do jewelry in their home that requires a torch, they have to use something on the order of a creme brulee torch***.
***Did you know that the torches they use on, like, the Great British Baking Show for caramelizing creme brulee and browning the outside of meringues will produce flames with temperatures up to 2700 degrees Fahrenheit? I didn't. I also didn't know that the flames of your average house fire generally range between 1,000 and 2,000 Fahrenheit. Fun stuff!
no subject
Date: 2019-06-08 05:54 am (UTC)strongly recommend at least one pair of good thick leather/insulated fire gloves too
(we used a buffing wheel instead of pickling solution for burnishing off scale - a dremel with the right attachment might be an alternative if you don't want to deal with liquids)