Practice makes better. This is why commitment is important.
Today I attempted to solder the bezels for my stones to the backs that form the piece. I knew this could be a challenge, because there are a lot of things that can go wrong when soldering bezels. It’s been a long time since I set a stone. How many mistakes did I make?
1) I started with too big of a flame and actually melted one corner of the back of one of the pieces – that was a new one.
2) On the other one, the solder didn’t flow all the way around, so there was a tiny gap. I managed to fix that one without undoing the rest of the solder, yay!
3) But I also managed to make a tiny gap in the solder of the bezel seam, which can’t be fixed. IF I don’t just start over, I’ll have to file it down a little.
4) I did this on my honeycomb soldering board, which is wonderful EXCEPT for work like this because it makes a pattern of little dots on the back that I will have to polish away. I had forgotten about that.
So. This will definitely be one of MY pieces, not for sale. Unless I decide to redo more of it than I think I’m going to.
But it was a good (re)learning experience, and I have been reminded of a number of things I had forgotten. Tomorrow I’ll decide how much I want to redo and go on from there.