Soldering failures/Tony's evil solder

   ....all you have to do is apply a small amount of paste solder to
the joint and then place the pallion of sheet solder on top. This
method also facilitates the flow of the solder inasmuch as the flux
in the paste is seemingly more effective than others. 

That sounds great, just a word of caution: The first time I used
paste solder it had dried out a bit I had the great idea of mixing a
drop of liquid flux (Rio Grande’s yellow stuff) to soften the paste a
bit - big mistake! The whole thing bubbled up, burned and solidified
as grey froth that took me forever to file away. Of course this was
on a complex piece and on inside corners (evil, remember ?); at least
I had a chance to try my new set of rifler files.

Thanks also for the advice on “opticon on opal?” thread. I ended up
using a tiny amount of low viscous Cyanoacrylate to conceal the
crackline. It was set very tightly so using the glue for the purpose
of securing the stone was never an issue. As all of my pieces so far
it had the purpose of trying out a new technique and I would never
ever consider not disclosing the “visual enhancement” if I ever got
to the point of selling my work.

Orchid is awesome - thanks a lot again !
Isabella