I was taking no chances with distortion this time and so, I made this simple clamp. The large holes are for the screws and the small for locating pins that passed through the holes etched for the handles.
Etches lined up and located with the three tapered pins.
Etches firmly clamped in place.
This is the finished side after 20mins in the sonic cleaning tank. On the right, I tried to draw the solder along but this resulted in some distortion as the iron passed over the half etched, very thin sections. After that , I only tried to solder where the window framing was which meant that the etch was full thickness. Even then, the joint failed in a couple of places. I was using 188 solder but for the other side I'll try 145. I ran out of Carr's green flux and was using some that I had bought from Hobby Holidays. This is a new soldering iron, Xytronic LF 1700, as my old one packed up. The temperature was set to 350 but still I couldn't get the solder to flow/run and this is the first time that I have used it. Well, second, as Queen Victorias carriage was the first and that was a disaster. Fingers crossed for better results with the other side once I've cleaned up the etches.
With so much heat, I would have thought that the solder would have melted and flowed quite easily but, not this time. Any thoughts from anyone?
Jon