Part 3 - Assembling
You Will Need: 1x small jump ring (5mm), a pair of flat-nosed pliers, a pair of snips, a flat needle file, a vernier gauge, a permanent marker (optional), a fire brick, reverse-action tweezers, flux, hard silver solder (or medium if you prefer), steel tweezers, brass tweezers, a blowtorch, fresh water, pickle, a pickling unit, copper tweezers.
Take the fourth and final small jump ring, make sure it’s flat and closed and then secure it into a pair of flat-nosed pliers with the join facing outwards. Use a pair of snips to remove around a third of the ring, and then tidy up the pinched ends with a flat needle file.
This half jump ring will be soldered to the ‘T’ bar wire you cut earlier.
Use your vernier gauge to find and mark the centre point of the ‘T’ wire (it should be 9mm from either end). It’s important that your jump ring is soldered in the centre of the wire so if you’re struggling to see the scribe line mark it with your permanent marker.
Place the wire on your fire brick, secure the half jump ring into a pair of reverse-action tweezers, and paint both the wire and the jump ring with flux.
Place one piece of hard silver solder on the wire on one side of the permanent marker line and position the jump ring on top so that the solder is sandwiched between one end of the jump ring and the wire.
Turn on your blowtorch and heat the wire and jump ring until the solder runs.
Use your brass tweezers to quench it in cold water and pop it in the pickle
Once pickled use a pair of flat-nosed pliers to open up the un-soldered side of the jump ring just enough to slide the three previously soldered jump rings onto it. Close it up again making sure the end of the jump ring is touching the wire.
Secure the half jump ring into a pair of reverse action tweezers with the join that you’re going to solder exposed and the three linked jump rings protected from the flame underneath the tweezers.
Paint the join with flux and use your steel tweezers to place one piece of hard silver solder up against the join where the wire and jump ring meet. These solder joins are quite close together so if you don’t feel comfortable with using hard solder here you can use a medium solder instead.
Turn on your blowtorch and heat the wire and jump ring just on the side where you want to solder the join. Try to avoid heating the other jump rings at all as you don’t want to accidentally run those joins.
Once the solder has run, use your brass tweezers to quench your piece in fresh water and pop it in the pickle.