Soldering Experience

As you can see, i am posting a lot today. I guess i just feel like i have a lot to say today. Haha. The previous post was getting too long, and i had a new topic, so i thought I'd just make a new post. Along the sides here, as i post, are the soldering project i started.
A couple days ago, the weather was simply beautiful out (it is again today :) ). The sky was blue, it was above 0 degrees (0 degrees Celsius is just above freezing, for my american friends) and there wasn't a breath of wind. I decided it was finally time to try out my new soldering iron, various metals, solder kit and blow torch. I had bend my copper pipe into a square type shape (very loose definition of square here lol) and needed to solder the two ends together.

At first, since i had never used any of the tools, i decided to start with mine 'nice' small little soldering iron. I was sorely disappointed. I swear, my glue gun gets hotter than this thing does! I could fully grab the tip with my hand after it has been plugged in for 20 minutes already (while i frequently burn myself with my glue gun). The thing was no where NEAR the temperatures it would need to melt the solder. Sigh.

Next I tried the blow torch, since the iron was a bust. 2 packs of matches later, i still couldn't get the stupid thing lit hahha. I asked for the help of my extreemely handy landlord, and he was able to show me how to light the torch (a match just doesn't cut it, apparantly) and he showed me the technique and such.

So the two pictures you've seen along the way are of the copper pipe Todd and I soldered together. I first bend the 'flexible' (but still so very hard and rigid!) copper pipe into shape. I then pounded on it a bunch with my huge wrench (thanks again uncle bob haha) to somewhat flatten it and add interest to the texture. We then heated it with the blow torch, and soldered the two together. I am fairly pleased with how this is going so far. Next i need to glue on wire mesh, as a backing. I am following the inspiration from the frame from Summerset Studios magazine, shown a couple posts back.