Hinges

I HATE hinges. Had to go to that really dodgy craft shop in the Merrion centre to find some copper rods to make the hinge- they had some but they were too thick and they didnt have the right length of steel to go through the inside. Craft shop my aunt nelly.

Anyway, Liz had some so switched my too-big rod for hers and away we went. Had to cut the copper rod into 3 equal lengths and then I had to clean 2 of them for each side of the box, with the middle one left to be soldered onto the top part of my box.

This was sooo difficult! Had to bind these two fiddly bits of rod onto the edge of my box but you can't handle them too much as they need to be uber clean for the soldering process. This meant wearing very fetching rubber gloves which kept getting wrapped up in the binding wire and it took me several attempts to get this right.

When I had finally bound the rods into position (sort of) i then lined up the solder and started torching it. As soon as I had got one on, the other fell off so had to quench the whole thing and start all over again. More sanding down.. more filing...more sanding....more binding with the wire...more anger.
gahhh

Tried it again...to no avail.
Decided to not use the binding wire but to ledge the rods onto the bricks and squish them onto the rim of the box at the last minute with the tweezers. Tricky, very tricky.

Only had one tiny bit of hinge for ages.

Second bit of hinge went on and then, after several attempts to solder on the middle bit to the top of the box whilst it was all together, decided to take it apart, mark where it was meant to be, and just hope for the best.
turned out b.e.a.utiful but unfortunately, because i had to keep cleaning and sanding down each hinge every time it went wrong, by the time they were on, they were getting rather thin and worn in places...
N.B- be careful with copper rod and gently sand it no matter how much longer that will take.

Once I had all rods in place, I then threaded through the steel wire and hammered the ends so to split the metal and keep it in place.

After the steel went in, I could no longer put it into the pickle to clean and so got out the wet and dry paper again...gotta love that stuff.