Question: Can you recommend any way of keeping things in place to solder? I'm using a couple of tweezers to hold things but I find that the air from the torch is enough to blow things apart.

Answer:
I never tie anything, never use a third hand, and never worry about things moving a little. If your torch is actually blowing elements being soldered, turn down your torch. Sometimes I do use a second tweezers to hold the entire piece in place that I am soldering something on to. I almost never use anything to hold a small piece in place. The nice thing about using only hard solder is that everything will stay in place as you solder on the next piece.

Follow these steps for most problems:

1. Secure the larger piece that will have a smaller piece soldered on to it. Use T-pins in the soldering surface, third hands, a second tweezers, or smash it into the soldering surface. I even have been known to solder it to something bigger which would act as a "silver handle." Then after soldering on the smaller elements, I have cut off this "handle." NO PROBLEMO!

2. Clean an area for your arms, especially your dominant hand, to rest on. Do not try to solder small pieces on while your dominant hand is suspended in air from the shoulder! Your forearm should always be resting on the bench.

3. I hold all small elements in the only tweezers I recommend: the bent nose, insulated, spring shut tweezers. If you are using anything else, throw them away!

4. If I am soldering on a small piece, I almost always sweat solder the solder on to the small piece first. (Sweat solder simply means to melt the solder (hard solder of course!) on to the small piece first (at the solder joint area, of course, and flux first, of course).

5. Then, I hold the small piece close to the point where it will be soldered on to, but not touching the larger piece, not all the way in place. If you try to hold it in the exact place, like a third hand would, your hand will begin to get fatigued and shake before the piece is ready to solder. Just hold it, in a relaxed position close to the larger piece so that it can begin to get preheated as you heat the larger piece. You should be relaxed, no stress, as you are not trying to hold it in an exact position. You should sit in a relaxed manner, your arms are resting on the bench. Your dominant hand is relaxed with your forearm resting on the bench (if not, move everything around). Your breathing is normal, and you have a good Clint Eastwood movie on the TV. You have waited for a break in the sex and violence, and you are in the "soldering zone." You may even be humming the soldering mantra I gave you (if you haven't paid me for your personal soldering mantra, you should!). Oops, sorry, I got carried away. The point is: do not try to hold the small piece in place, just off the piece slightly, relaxed.

6. Watch your flux, when it melts into the brown puddles, then place your small piece into position, back your torch off to heat a larger area to the soldering temperature, and concentrate it on the pieces to be soldered on. Do not back it up enough to lose the heat, just enough to control it!

7. The split second the solder melts and flows down off the small piece on to the large piece, get the torch off! (by the way, as some you may know, for 20 years I have been saying that Einstein was wrong about not being able to travel faster than light. I always believed something can go faster! I never knew any equation that was ever made, that you can not add +1 to. There was an article out last week that we have developed a laser that can speed up light about 10%!!! Does that mean that E=MC2 can now be E=MC2+10%? My hopes are that it means we can travel to other worlds faster, or at least to Pizza Hut quicker!) So, move faster than light when you do this step, it is now possible!!!!!!!!

8. Remember, the thing or things holding the larger piece will be HOT. Do not touch them after soldering! You will not be able to move fast enough! The human finger, when being burned, can only move at E=MC2-99% according to Don's Principles of Soldering ( A $10 book that is in pre publishing editing). Wait until things cool down, and then remove your piece!

Question: I've had some trouble with the dried flux creating enough space between flat surfaces causing the solder not to fill that space, creating a separation between surfaces. Any ideas on that?

Answer:
You may be using too much flux. I know I said this is impossible, but if you are soldering flat pieces for overlay, you may be able to. More importantly are the following:

1. Make sure the pieces are completely flat before even starting.

2. Sweat some solder on to the top piece before putting them together. In other words, do not ever flux the pieces, and then simply lay solder under the top piece and then heat. Always sweat some solder on to the pieces, and then put them together.

3. Melt the flux completely, nearly to the puddle stage, before putting on solder.

4. Flux, if you have enough solder, cannot lift or keep pieces apart. Once it becomes liquid, the heavier, denser, solder will simply push it out of the way.

5. You may not be getting the pieces hot enough for the solder to melt and flow enough for the pieces to settle down and solder flat.

6. Dried flux does not stay dry; it turns to a liquid, so it really can not create a large space. It really sounds more like a "not enough heat" problem, where the pieces are not hot enough to melt the solder.