This weekend I decided I'd augment my entertainment center. And by entertainment center I mean the Ikea coffee table on which my TV sits and under which my various TV related electronics live.
My plan was to make a cage thing for my TV to sit on while my electronics live underneath, thereby leaving room under the table for my vacuum to hide. And I thought I'd get all showy and build the whole business out of copper tube.
The whole thing should have cost me about $40, but I underestimated the girth of my CD player and had to buy another 10 feet of tube. Then I realized that my TV would fall down if I didn't solder the tubes together, so I bought a propane torch, some solder, and some flux. Finally I realized the legs would slide off the table, so I needed some caps and screws. At this point the thing is approaching the $80 mark, although $26 of that is tools, and tools don't count.
Today I soldered it all together. I hadn't previously soldered anything, so here's what I've newly learned:
- Use flux on both the pipe and the inside of the fitting.
- Heat ONLY the fitting, not the pipe.
- Don't solder one side of a fitting then come back to the other side later. It doesn't work.
- Don't learn to solder on your project. Figure it out on your extra bits. (I'll have to go ahead an apply that one next time.)
But all and all I'm reasonably happy with it. It creaks a little more than I'm comfortable with, so it's going to get some plywood tomorrow to help distribute my TV's fatness.
Here's an inadequate picture so you know what I'm being so boring about:
3 comments:
Didn't you have a small soldering kit when you were about 13?
I remember you trying to fix telephones and other household items with a soldering kit.
Hmm.
Sweet!
Yeah, but putting solder on wires and soldering pipes together is a whole different ball game. One requires electricity, and one requires a can of fire. I'm just learning to use the can of fire.
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