Soldering Screw-ups

So, another gorgeous day today. Decided to try my hand at soldering my newly created charms from last night. All the glass was carefully and neatly cut (spraying little glass chips all over...oops sorry ray). The images for inside were carefully selected and cropped out. The glass pieces were individually wrapped in copper tape... i was ready to go.

Here is an example of how it looked pre-soldering, in all it's cuteness:




So i took everything outside and got set up. Got the blowtorch going with no problems, was a simple matter of using the bbq lighter instead of matches. So i tried holding the two halves together with needle nose pliers. Which is where i met with my first problem. I couldn't hold them in the middle of the charm because of the pliers angles. And if i held to the left or right, it would hold that side lower down than the other and they weren't even. After wrestling for a while with the charm halves and the pliers, we met with a very precarious equilibrium.

So, it took some time but the copper tape heated up nicely enough for the solder to melt... ooops forgot the flux! Had to turn off the torch and paint the flux on, which sizzled satisfyingly. Then got going. But the problem now is that the inside of the glass, especially where the paper butterfly was glued on with glue stick, turned black, smoked a lot and crumbled. Guess even with it held together it didn't work out. And then in the end the glass went kind of black, the copper tape crisped up and the stained glass cracked. Ok... this didn't go so well. Here are the results. It was terrible.






I think i will give myself a day to relax, and then try again tomorrow. but next time, i will tape the two pieces TOGETHER so the flame/smoke/heat can't get inside as easily and so that i won't have the pliers problem. If you look at the pics above, you will see i have also copper taped them together now. But now I'm not sure why the solder is necessary, since the tape is adequately holding them together. However, i love the look of solder...

I see that Sally Jean Alexander's book 'Pretty Little Things' that i have been drooling over at Chapters is in the library. That works well for my limited budget. I'll tie myself over with the library copy, and then ask for it for my birthday :). That's a good plan... or just to love it so much that i go out and buy it anyways. hahaha. We'll see how much i NEED it after borrowing it.