Originally Posted by
Kwant
Hi Antonia, tube is by definition hollow, wire on the other hand is not necessarily thin, the word wire just indicates it is solid lengths, it comes in all manner of thicknesses and can be bought in a number of different shapes, round, square, d shaped, oval. A short length of a thick wire would perhaps be better called rod I would never have thought to state that, but true!!.
As fas as the solder you use goes, most people prefer hard solder, which melts at the highest temperature, but flows nicely. Mostly it depends on the number of joints you are going to be making, you start with the hard high temperature and work down to the lower one Hard>medium (doesn't flow very well)>easy>extra easy. Though having said that, once a joint is made it then melts at a higher temperature the next time that goes for each type of solder and if you are careful you can use hard for all joints. Solder comes as wire or panels - a thin sheet, both wire and sheet are better if made thinner by hammering or rolling, less spills of excess solder and they go further!!in a paste form, which has the flux mixed in, the wire & panelsform needs a separate flux.
Pickling can be achieved simply with salt and vinegar but it takes a while and is better warmed up, this can be done in a jar in a pan of hot water, the same goes for an alum solution, which is more effective and safe, acid can be used, sulphuric in a dilute concentration: battery acid is easily available and is sold at a level of around 37 percent ( this is what I use and do not dilute, though it is a tad on the dangerous side, but very effective :0) :-O). A lot of people use a cheap crock pot slow cooker for warming their pickle, I believe these can be bought at places like Argos for very little £5-10 but glaze can erode over time.
Polishing can be achieved by hand, using files, sandpaper, and more modern abrasives such as micro mesh, which is a soft backed form of sandpapery type stuff. You work from rough to smooth through the grades to achieve your polish the smaller the number the coarser the paper (ie 360 is much coarser than 1200). Thereafter various paste polishes can be used though these generally would need motorised help. A hand held motor device such as a Dremmel or pendant motor with hand piece will of course take some of the work out of this Aldi/Lidl often have something similar.
Tumbling is a very convenient way of achieving a polish and items can come out of the tumbler with little or no need for further polishing (though items do need to be cleaned of oxides after pickling before tumbling), depending on how high a polish you are after, personally I do not like very high polish. It is only ever worth buying a decent one and they are not cheap, though I think they are indispensable.
A rolling mill is, at this point in your adventure, not necessary as you can buy the materials you need already in sheet and wire form, and failing that a good bash with hammers will thin material down with frequent annealing.
