Tag Archives: Soldering unit

Portfolio #3

On my last blog post I talked about our soldering unit. This time I’ll be doing an update on my soldering project. 

I have decided what I’m going to do! I will be doing a basketball, inside the circle, and making it into a bracelet! But this bracelet is not going to be for me… It’s going to be for my cousin, she goes to University Of Vermont, and is on the Basketball team. I barely ever see her anymore, so I’m making her a little something. Just to be sure she remembers me.

Mr. Calvert has given everybody the choice between silver, and gold wire. I chose silver wire, cause I thought it was prettier, and easier to work with. I have started making my basketball, but the first step was two make a circle. The circle seemed easy to make at first… But it was a lot harder then it seemed! (Even though he gave us a tube to wrap the wire around, so it would be easier) Forming the circle shape wasn’t to bad… But actually making the parts of the circle nice and curved, with no bumps in the wire was super hard! Honestly my circle still isn’t perfect, but it still looks pretty good!

Then I had to shape my wire that was going to be the actual basketball. There was one straight line going down the middle, one straight line going straight across, and two slightly curved lines on each side. And then Mr. Calvert gave everyone double sided tape and we stuck that onto paper and put our designs on that so it would all stay together when soldering.

Once I was done with that it was time to actually solder my little piece together. To do that I would go to the soldering table and  Mr. Calvert provided us with a really bendy metal, a soggy sponge, the solderer itself, and a third hand (which I’ll get to later when I get the chance).

I took the solder and held it against my piece in a spot where wires weren’t connected, and I held it there for 10 seconds. Then I kept my solder where it was except I just added the bendy piece of wire, and I put it against the wire, and solderer, and when it melted the bendy wire.

Once I was done with that process my piece was finished! And it was ready to give to my cousin!

I hope you have enjoyed this blog post! Stay tuned to see what I do next!