.... Ever had a day when you wished you'd not got out of bed that
morning?
Yeah, lots of em. But I get up anyway, at least most of the time…:-
)
... Eventually, after the wind kept blowing it out,
Try to avoid an actual wind, including fans blowing across your
soldering/torch use area. Many jewelers torches get really hard to
light in any sort of actual breeze. If you’ve got the garage door
open for ventillation, close it enough so there’s no actual breeze in
your work area. That will help a lot. Barring that, you’ll do best to
set up some sort of wind screen so you’re at least lighting the torch
in mostly still air.
I The knob was SO stiff that I could not turn it sensitively -
when new, the torch valves can be pretty stiff at first. But you
might also try very slightly loosening the larger hex nuts at the
base of each valve. I don’t recall if this is the case on the Little
torch, but on many, that net, actually part of the valve body where
it screws into the torch handle, is also part of the packing/sealing
system to keep the valve stem from allowing a gas or oxygen leak. If
that’s the case, slightly unscrewing that from the torch body will
ease the tightess with which the valve turns. Don’t overdo it, or
you’ll get the leak the packing is intended to prevent. If it doesn’t
help, then I’ve remembered the torch construction wrong, so tighten
it up again. Either way, it WILL loosen up after you’ve used it a
bit.
it was either off or too far on, such that it would blow the flame
out and pop.
It also sounds as though you’ve got the tank output pressures set
too high. The little torch uses gas an oxygen pressures a good deal
lower than most other torches. Try unscrewing the regulator handles a
bit to get lower pressures. That should help a lot with the torch
flame blowing out.
Eventually, Darren came to find me, telling me that he'd fitted it
with the wrong size tip and that after changing it, it was now
much easier to light.
If you’ve got the usual standard little torch kit, they usually
supply it with the same set of tips no matter what fuel gas you’ll be
using. With propane or natural gas, the first three tip sizes,
1,2,and 3 are pretty useless. You can, with low tank settings, get
the 3 to light but it’s good for only the tiniest of soldering jobs.
The 1 and 2 are almost impossible to light at all with any flame
stability, though sometimes you can get a faint tiny flame useful
for polishing details on wax models. But that’s about it. In general,
for actual work on metals, you’ll be using the #4 and larger tips
with propane and oxygen.
One would think that the perimeter of a 9x7mm rectangular stone
would be 32mm - well at least it was when I was at school.
It would be if the metal you were making the bezel out of had no
thickness. Because it does, the 32 mm perimeter would give you too
small a bezel, since that measurement ends up as about the
centerline of the bezel wall, not it’s interior measurement needed if
the stone will fit. Measure your bezel wall thickness, and add twice
the metal thickness to your 32 mm length, and it should come out
right. Or in other words, add the metal thickness to each of the
dimensions before doing the math. Works for round stones the same
way. Add the metal thickness to the diameter, then multiply by pi,
and you get the needed circumference. Ovals, take the average
diameter (length + width /2), add the metal thickness, and as with
rounds, multiply by pi.
It’s pretty easy to get this wrong. Some people forget that when
bent, the interior surface is compressed and shrinks, while the
exterior surface stretches, so the effective length of the blank
remains along it’s centerline. That can be confusing. Plus, with
sharp corners, wider stock sometimes tends to flare/stretch
differently from narrower bezel stock, so you may have to adjust
slightly
If your bezel is being made of slightly thicker material, another
method that works easily for square and rectangles is to make the
bezel of two pieces, not one. Each is one corner and two legs. On
each, one leg is cut so when held up to the stone, it ends exactly
at the far corner, while the second leg is left a bit long. The two
pieces can be then set up so each longer leg forms a T joint with
the short leg of the other piece. If you set this up accurately for
soldering, you can get an exact fit without having to worry so much
about premeasuring the blank. it does mean you have two corners that
are soldered shut instead of being bent metal, which has to be taken
into account when setting, as those corners may end up a little
stiffer than the unsoldered, bent corners. But then, for sharp
corners, you’ll have filed a groove into the stock prior to bending
it, so the outside of the corner ends up nice and crisp and square,
instead of rounded. That way, there’s solder in all four corners, all
four also are nice and crisp, and they’ll all behave the same in
setting. Oh, and the trick for getting the two pieces set at the
right postion for soldering is to scribe the desired position for
the joint on the inside surface of the long leg of each L shaped
piece, and then, using a graver, raise a stitch or two right up to
your scribed line so the graver mark will be inside the solder joint.
Now you’ve got a raised spur that the ends of the short legs can rest
against during soldering, so they don’t slip out of position.
cheers
Peter
