Naked, tarnished and split

Now, here is the sudden interruption to the ring I told you about in my previous post… An old unfinished project that didn’t really work out before, but that I now very quickly got used to wearing as it is. It fits so nicely around the finger.

As I was playing around with it, trying different ideas to “dress it up”, it fell out of my hands and hit the floor.

Crack!

I knew the soldering was not perfect. You could clearly see the line between the two hemispheres and that’s not how it should be. I think it was that line that made me want to keep it tarnished, as a decorative flaw.

I’ll fix it, solder and restore the globe. Bye, bye tarnish, I will end up with a cleaner piece in the end.

Do you see that tiny hole? Do you know why it’s there? It’s to allow excess air to escape from inside. If you need to heat up a hollow piece like this (to solder f ex), the air inside expands by the heat. If the hot air has no place to go, the piece can explode. You don’t want any hot metal projectiles to fly around, so that tiny hole is simply a safety measure. It’s on the lower side of the globe, close to the ring, barely visible.

So, I’m further back than where I started, but that’s OK. Repair work is good practice.

Thanks for reading – and as always, your thoughts, ideas and input are more than welcome!