I just made this piece, possibly didn't think it through that well. It's not quite finished, but enough to see the issue. I needed to leave more of a margin for the beak as has gone even thinner (as they are in reality) but a little too thin for practicality.
I overheated the metal, because I only have a hand held blow torch and it struggles to reach and even temperature all over for bigger pieces (it's only about 2 inches long though and have done longer pieces so wondering if it is more to do with the pieces not being matched in size). The first solder attempt only the beak soldered to the flower. The second, only one side of the rings would the solder flow, on the third attempt I managed to get it all to flow. I'm not entirely sure what I did differently, I think spent more time heating the bird first as think the solder may have burnt on the thinner side (first time) as it was hot before the rest, especially the stem. Is that the best way to approach getting something like this up to temperature, concentrate in the bigger piece, while heating all of it but more so on larger item? I know ideally I would have a different torch, but obviously I did something wrong as it did work the third time.
Due to being heated a lot the beak has got rather soft, I know it is only a small point for attaching/soldering but seems strong but wondering if now the beak is going to be prone to breaking? I can't think of anything I can do without wrecking the piece to harden it up? Due to the overheating there was a lot of fire scale and during the lengthy polishing where it got rather warm, the beak bent slightly, guess it's going to be a weak point now?
Sorry, I have been asking a lot of questions lately. I do search first but couldn't really find anything that answers this specifically.
Advice again, please - soldering/design?
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