point with a little flux. Place the two rings back together on the brick or flame resistant surface where you will be soldering. Add the piece of solder to one side of the connection (see inside of red circle on last photo above). The excess flux will act as glue to hold the solder in place. Repeat until all the connections are fluxed and solder is applied. Now you are ready to apply heat and solder your finished work of art.
Step 7: Time to Torch your Work of Art :3D
Picture of Time to Torch your Work of Art :3D
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Before soldering your piece, it wouldn't hurt to solder a couple of sample rings, to get a feel for how the heat and solder flow. Just remember that when solder melts, it moves to the hottest point on the metal surface. So apply the heat at the ring connection points. Also you don't want the torch to be running full throttle, so adjust the propane output so the flame looks something like the photo above. You should see two blue cones, a large one and bright blue one that is smaller. The tip of the smaller cone is what you want touching the rings, since it is the hottest point. Carefully move the tip of the cone from one connection to the other, staying only long enough for the solder to reflow and wick up the gap between the rings (roughly 3-5 seconds). Once you have reflowed all of the connections, safely remove the torch from the piece, turn off and set aside. Some of the solder joints will still be liquid, and the copper will be red hot, so leave untouched until it has had time to completely cool. Don't want any fingers to get burned now. You can sprinkle a little water on the piece to speed this up.
Step 8: Enjoy your work!
Picture of Enjoy your work!
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All that's left is tying a piece of ribbon through one the rings, and you are done! It's ready to hang on that Christmas tree or wherever you want to show it off. You've earned it! You can leave the piece as is, which has a cool steampunkish look, or more work can be done to bring back some of that shine taken away by the torch. I used a sand blasting chamber to remove the dark lines and create a matte finish (third photo above). Hope you all had fun, and please leave me comments and photos of the works that you make. I'd love to see them. I will be publishing more works in the near future, including some projects with my 3D printer, so keep in touch for postings.