Conquer Your Fears
This is a picture of my acetylene/air torch set up. Do you want to know how long I have had it? Almost a year. And do you want to know how many times I've used it? That would be once! And I only managed to fire it up, I didn't actually make, melt, or solder anything with it. I am terrified of it. I can use a kiln and I love my small butane torch but this thing scares me to death. So one of goals (I love to make goals) this summer was to figure it out even if I blew myself up trying. I found the tutorial I had bookmarked last summer. I love the sub-title, "Conquer Your Fears and Commit to Your Craft." It's so serious and dramatic and artistic sounding. So I studied it and the instructions which came with the torch (which, naturally, were a bit different) and I got the torch lit and I melted some copper. I even enameled some silver headpins. I figure if I use it every day, I'll get used to using it and I
can master soldering. I dream of putting some of my enamel work into bezels and taking my jewelry and supplies one step further. I admit I haven't completely conquered my fears but I'm working on it!
Gaa, I know just what you mean about being terrified of the torch. Every time I light mine, I whisper "don't blow up, don't blow up..." under my breath.
ReplyDeleteLike you said, a little practice every day and you really do get more and more comfortable. Good luck!
Oh, and a handy little tip for your charcoal block? Wrap a few pieces of steel binding wire around the sides. Charcoal blocks are great for reflecting heat back, to your piece, but the have a tendency to crack and break, though I can't remember why off the top of my head. The steel wire trick is something I was taught when I was first learning how to solder.
Thanks Jewelry_Gal, I will whisper to my torch, too, sounds like a good idea! I have some binding wire and I will wrap my charcoal block.
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