Designing With Glass

(Page 3 of 4)

April/May 1994
By Michelle Silver 
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To make sides: Cut two 7 3/4" x 1 3/4" strips and two 5" x 1 3/4" strips.

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Foiling

Pick up your roll of copper foil with 7/32" width, and peel back a few inches of the adhesive. Stick the foil to one of your side pieces starting at the center of the short edge (1 3/4"), and wrap the foil around the edges of the rest of the glass. If you keep a little tension as you are wrapping, it will stick better. When you are done, go back and crimp down the sides of the foil with your thumb, making sure the corners are lying flat. Repeat with all of the glass sides. For the lid and mirror bottom, however, switch over to your 5/16' thick foil, and start foiling in the middle of your 8" side.

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Soldering

Using your spray bottle of flux, coat all of the glass with the wet solution. For the mirror, coat only the back side. Then, holding the mirror (box bottom) so that the mirror is facing you on its 5" side, hold one of the 5" x 1 X" pieces on top of it, so that the two 5" edges are perpendicular to one another. Now touch your soldering iron to the solder, getting a small glob on it, and then press it to the seam you just created, making a small dot of solder. Do this a few more times along the seam so that the two glass pieces are bonded. Then run the iron along the seam you just created over the foil.

Rotate the mirror to its 8" side, and hold one of the 3/4" x 1 3/4" pieces on top of it so that the 8" side is perpendicular with the 7 3/4" side (in an L-shape). Solder this new seam according to the instructions above. Solder the other 7 3/4" piece onto your box, and then solder the bottom on. The last side you solder should be the 5" one.

Next, solder all of the seams again, this time for cosmetic reasons. They should be smooth and slightly rounded. Let each seam set for eight seconds before moving on to the next one, and be careful not to leave the iron on the glass for more than 30 seconds or it may crack. If you accidentally get solder on the glass, spray a bit of flux on the spot and wipe it off with your nail. You can lightly solder a thin coating along the top edge of the box, which is not really a seam.

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