One in the eye for the God of Soldering

We usually say a prayer, or if its a difficult piece make an offering, to the soldering god before applying heat to solder... But, even then, the God of Soldering is capricious...

So, I wondered if there might be an alternative and as part of my new piece, I've been experimenting with 'mechanical silver'. I found a Watchmakers Tap and Die set on eBay which has allowed me to connect silver tubing together without the need to solder.
There's something very satisfying about turning silver tube into a threaded screw, especially when you can spin the die off it at the end... That being said, watch our for enthusiasm, I've already broken a tap...make sure you match the right hole size to the tap.

Here are a couple of pictures of some of the early detail of my new, mechanical, piece.