Rings of Problems

The three days of the Fall Art Tour takes a lot of me.
This week I feel closer my center than I've been....

so back to the RocketRings.

When I made the very first ones,
I had some flooding of the cutouts
due to too much solder.
I thought I would prevent the flooding
by using tinier solder pieces, frugally.....
which caused other problems.

Part of how I wind up learning so much
is by making so many mistakes...(not on purpose, mind you)
but I wind up learning a whole lot more...thoroughly.
Also my way of solving a problem I'm new to,
like avoiding the flooding of cutouts
is more than likely NOT the way to avoid the problem,
but of creating different ones which would never be covered or talked about in class
until they were right there in front of you.....by accident...
FireScale...Pits...& Gaps.....Oh, My!

ANOTHER problem I had to quickly correct
was a potentially bad shaping problem with the rawhide mallet,
the out of shape ring and the ring mandrel.
I was getting a dip in the ring which would have prevented union of the rings.
My tapping was happening on the outer edges
more than on the ring band as a whole,
which wound up stretching the outside edges....
so of COURSE this would result in a belly.

Interesting result, but not what I want now.
I wonder if this might be part of the problems with the troublesome three.
I suppose I'll be finding out a little later when it comes to shaping.

OK! Taking the TIME to pay attention
to proper shaping, fitting, internal finishing...
I sat down to assemble another set.
BINGO...the solder flowed perfectly.

I had no idea how thoroughly until I took it out of the pickle
and looked at the other side.
Wow. All the cutouts, all the edges....
the soldered went everywhere it was supposed to go
with just one heating.
Maybe I was really lucky, but it felt good.