Soldering tip: How to keep the solder from running through to the back

In this short video I show how to keep the solder from running through small gaps to the back of the piece.

When making a large stained glass panel there are usually some small spots where the pieces don't quite line up perfectly and small gaps appear.  These tiny gaps sometimes result in a small pool of solder on the back side of the piece.  An easy way to overcome this problem is to snip small sections of copper wire to fill the small gaps with.

I use reclaimed electrical wire salvaged from a house that was demolished.  I stripped the sheathing from the wire with a knife and use the wire cutters on my needle nosed pliers to cut it to length.  If you have a gap that runs the length of the piece, you can cut the wire to length and bend it to fit; or, if the gap is just in a small corner, you can just cut a tiny little nub of wire to fill the spot.  as long as the wire does not have a coating on it, fluxing it will allow the solder to stick to it and not pass through to the other side.  I use this technique when the holes are not very big:  if the gaps are too big, I'll re-cut the piece to fit.

Two Tools In One: Stained Glass

I have been working a lot on stained glass lately and thought it might be helpful to show you how I have made my glass cutting more efficient.  I do this by taping my grozer pliers to my glass cutter.  Now this only works with the pistol grip pliers, but I like it a lot.  It only took me a few minutes of using them together like this and I was hooked.  I don't see them as two tools anymore, I go from cutting to nipping with ease and without even thinking about it.

No more dropping one tool to pick up the next, and then dropping that one to go back to the first.  This trick has saved me lots of time and probably some arthritis.  I know it has saved my ears.  All that tool dropping can get loud.

I used blue painting tape because I just wanted to see if it would work and wanted to be able to peel it off if it didn't work well.  Apparently it works great because it has been over a year of using the tools like this and I haven't even thought of replacing the tape.

Try it out and let me know how it works for you.  If you are an entrepreneur and are able to fabricate something like this into a single tool, go ahead, by all means, do it.  But, please send me a pair, cuz remember folks, you saw it here first.