Hi All

I'm trying to make a sculpture out of coins..... I'm going to be
soldering the coins in a tube for fingers....doing the individual
finger joins in cylinders. Then I'll be drilling these joints together
and threading wire through to secure....this will be welded on main
hand bit which will have coins soldered on flat.....ok my question is
how can i hold the coins in place before i solder.

I'm going to be arranging the coins to resemble the shape of
fingers....so not just in a typical cylinder....I need something like
plastercine that will hold the coins in a row like this
|||||||||

I tried to place it in a vice but that took too much of the heat away
for the solder too work.

firecement....? that will harden....?

any suggestions welcome

many thanks

Paul

wrote in message
oups.com...
fingers....so not just in a typical cylinder....I need something like
plastercine that will hold the coins in a row like this
|||||||||

I tried to place it in a vice but that took too much of the heat away
for the solder too work.

The common wisdom would be to use a clamp that has small cross-section
'fingers' so they don't sink so much of your heat. I guess you could also
stack them in a Vee-groove in a block of graphite -- but that sounds like
too much work for the results you're after.

However, one benefit of the graphite block would be that you could contour
the groove to hold the coins in something other than a perfectly straight
cylinder.

LLoyd

A bowl of small steel balls - BB's

JAMW
wrote in message
oups.com...
Hi All

I'm trying to make a sculpture out of coins..... I'm going to be
soldering the coins in a tube for fingers....doing the individual
finger joins in cylinders. Then I'll be drilling these joints together
and threading wire through to secure....this will be welded on main
hand bit which will have coins soldered on flat.....ok my question is
how can i hold the coins in place before i solder.

I'm going to be arranging the coins to resemble the shape of
fingers....so not just in a typical cylinder....I need something like
plastercine that will hold the coins in a row like this
|||||||||

I tried to place it in a vice but that took too much of the heat away
for the solder too work.

firecement....? that will harden....?

any suggestions welcome

many thanks

Paul

Can you get a coil spring, like a door spring, and slip the coins between
the coils and then bend things around till they are in position to solder.
Use nails in a board to hold position?
lg
no neat sig line
wrote in message
oups.com...
Hi All

I'm trying to make a sculpture out of coins..... I'm going to be
soldering the coins in a tube for fingers....doing the individual
finger joins in cylinders. Then I'll be drilling these joints together
and threading wire through to secure....this will be welded on main
hand bit which will have coins soldered on flat.....ok my question is
how can i hold the coins in place before i solder.

I'm going to be arranging the coins to resemble the shape of
fingers....so not just in a typical cylinder....I need something like
plastercine that will hold the coins in a row like this
|||||||||

I tried to place it in a vice but that took too much of the heat away
for the solder too work.

firecement....? that will harden....?

any suggestions welcome

many thanks

Paul

wrote:

I'm trying to make a sculpture out of coins..... I'm going to be
soldering the coins in a tube for fingers....doing the individual
finger joins in cylinders.

One major problem you need to solve, if you are using soft solders, is
how to keep the old joints from falling apart while you work on later
ones.

With high temperature hard solders you use decreasing temperature
solders as you work towards completion and don't tend to heat soak the
whole part as much since the technique is different and the flames more
concentrated.

On 15 Nov 2005 13:11:32 -0800, wrote:

wrote:

I'm trying to make a sculpture out of coins..... I'm going to be
soldering the coins in a tube for fingers....doing the individual
finger joins in cylinders.

One major problem you need to solve, if you are using soft solders, is
how to keep the old joints from falling apart while you work on later
ones.

With high temperature hard solders you use decreasing temperature
solders as you work towards completion and don't tend to heat soak the
whole part as much since the technique is different and the flames more
concentrated.

Why not use epoxy instead of solder to bond the coins?

"Usual Suspect" wrote in message
...
On 15 Nov 2005 13:11:32 -0800, wrote:

wrote:

I'm trying to make a sculpture out of coins..... I'm going to be
soldering the coins in a tube for fingers....doing the individual
finger joins in cylinders.

Why not use epoxy instead of solder to bond the coins?

Epoxy has lousy shear strength. Furthermore, it tends to get brittle with
age. You can use epoxy for joints that are unlikely to be stressed. Not
for this application. Besides, it would look ugly.

There are several techniques for holding the parts while you solder. In
your case, the first thing to use is a charcoal block. You make curved
slots into which to place the edges of the coin. Say you need three coins
to complete a circle. Put the three coins in the slots so they touch. You
will also need some binding wire (soft iron wire and charcoal blocks are
available at any jewelry supply store). Lightly put the iron wire around
the three coins, firmly, but not so tight that squeeze the pieces together.
In your case, I would also put a small plug of charcoal at the top of the
three coins to prevent their caving in. Be careful to put flux only at the
joints you intend to solder and use only very small pieces of solder. The
solder will not attach to the wire.
Once you've got the base done, just use binding wire to attach the
next three coins to the cylinder.
With copper, the problem of undoing previous joints is not severe.
With silver, it would be quite difficult. One way to prevent this, should
it be a problem, is to put the starting ring in a small pool of water.
Jeweler's typically use their dapping block for the purpose.
The above is what you would do if you were doing this as a one-off
project. If you wanted to do a lot more, e.g. production, you should look
into resistance soldering or spot welding. Either will require an
investment of several hundred dollars.
\
Boris\

--

-------------------------------------
Boris Beizer Ph.D. Seminars and Consulting
1232 Glenbrook Road on Software Testing and
Huntingdon Valley, PA 19006 Quality Assurance

TEL: 215-572-5580
FAX: 215-886-0144
Email bsquare "at" earthlink.net

------------------------------------------