Finish soldering is when we clean up our solder. We make it pretty. We ensure that there are no clumps, there are no spikes, there are no bubbles, there are no flat parts. To accomplish finish soldering, we take a well heated iron with a clean tip and we begin moving up and down a solder bead. We press down, hold and lift, this provides us with a count of three. One, two, three; one, two, three; one, two, three; one, two, three; one, two, three; one, two, three; as I am moving to this count along the solder bead, I am ensuring that I overlap slightly with each previous tap. This allows for one long continuous bead. When doing that tied look and I see that this could use a little more solder and so I bite some off and apply it to the bead.
This will increase its size and allow it to show the proper proportions. Once I am done, I move to the next bead. If it needs a little extra, bite some off, start at the junction and do my up, down tapping motion to a walls (ph) bead until the next juncture. Clean and start again, we do this along all of our solder beads until we are comfortable that each one has the proper amount of solder and is smooth. If when tapping on the upbeat, we notice that we pull solder with us into a spike that looks almost like the curlicue on a soft serve ice cream cone. That means that we need to apply more flux before we can continue. At times, when doing this, we will notice bubbling coming up through the solder.
This is flux trapped beneath the solder that is burning off. If the solder cools enough before the bubbles has had a chance to pop, you can wind up with a hole in the solder. If that happens, you need to go over that line again. You will notice at times, I have also been flicking off excess solder onto my Homasote board. I do this because solder that is not needed on a bead, will move over onto the iron and can be removed. Once you are comfortable with one side, flip it over and move onto the next. When you get to joints or you tack solder, you may notice that it is not very even, it does not show off to point very well. To remove glass there, you can simply heat it up and pull through and flick off the excess.
This will help define your corners more. Another artifact that can sometimes appear at this point in your work are heat lines. Those are small wavy lines on the solder which appear when you have got warm solder cooling next to cold solder. It can be very difficult to remove those at times, patience is of utmost importance. When you are comfortable with the look of your solder lines, it is now time to tin the edges. Tinning involves a large amount of flux and very little solder, the idea is to cover the outside exposed copper with solder to protect it. What we do, we simply grab a little excess solder, maybe from a bubble or a small bead that has shown up somewhere, apply it to one of the edges where you have applied lots of flux and just run across. This will apply a paper thin layer of solder and protect the copper from corrosion and damage.
If you run out, grab a little more so that you have good protection. You will also be tinning the outside edges, if you are uncomfortable doing this or have difficulties, you can lift up the glass using a small stamp. When you have tinned all of the sides of your piece on both sides, then go back to these little edge tacks and remove just a little solder from them. You want to remove approximately one-eighth of an inch to create a flattened area right at the edge. This will allow your metal frame to slide on easily. Next, we are going to be looking at how to patina your solder, to enhance its appearance.
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