For metal, the most popular type is brass strip, sheet, or wire. It works well for this sort of thing. You can also use stranded copper wire found in power cords and blackened annealed steel wire. All of these will silver solder and they can be chemically blackened or otherwise painted. I have made hooks and eyebolts out of the thin copper wire down to very small sizes, some hooks as small as about 3/32” long. The blackened steel wire is readily available in very small gauges and is quite good for soldered hooks etc in 1/96 scale and larger.

Rather than try to show you how to make every joint that you might find useful in ship modeling, I think it would be better if I showed you some basic tips on how to make “a” joint. If you can make a simple joint, then you can make any joint. In my experience, there are two keys to a good hard soldered joint. First, the pieces to be joined must be clean and bright. Second, the two pieces must be in perfect contact for the joint to be completed. I know I have said these things so often it sounds like a broken record, but that is the long and short of it.

The cleaning part of it can be done with chemical pre cleaners, but for my work I have never used them. I have always been able to file up the pieces until they are clean and bright and that has been enough. I know several very fine and experienced modelers who swear by the pre cleaners so I will leave that to each modeler to decide.

Getting the pieces in perfect contact sometimes requires some thought. The best advice I can give is to try and let the tension in the metal work for you. This is accomplished by over bending the pieces and then springing them back so they are forced, by their own tension, to touch each other. That is much easier than trying to force them together when their tension wants to hold them apart. Even with brass that has been annealed, it is often difficult to simply bend the two pieces towards each other and have them make perfect contact. The best way is to over bend the pieces and then spring both pieces back so they will be forced against each other.

Well, let’s make a simple joint. We will make a loop such as is needed for an eyebolt, shackle, or a hook. There are two reasons for using this simple joint to illustrate the process of hard soldering. One, they say it is best to walk before you run. This simple joint is a good starting point for soldering. Two, this simple joint has everything in it that any other joint will have. If you can make this soldered joint, you can make any soldered joint.

We will begin with a roll of 24 gauge brass wire. Snip off a piece about 6 inches long. Holding it in a pair of cross locking tweezers or your pliers, anneal the piece. I use my trusty kitchen stove. Light the burner and hold the end of the piece in the flame until it glows red. Once it does, remove it. After it cools, use your pliers to bend the end of the piece back across itself. Place the pliers about 1 inch back from the end and bend that outer leg so it crosses over the wire. You can use the shank of a drill bit as a former for the loop you want to make. Now, you have the free end of the wire crossed over the standing part of the wire that you are holding. With the looped formed, pry the free end of the wire out a bit from the standing end of the wire so you can use your end nippers to cut off the excess part of the free end. Again, over bend here just a bit so after you snip off the excess, you can pull the free end of the wire back a bit and have it close up against the standing part of the wire.

    
Hook Loop
 

Hook loop, trimmed.
 

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