But if they have thin sides, or are of a large diameter, the bringing of their sides into juxta-position is very difficult, and the method of soldering just indicated becomes insufficient. In this case you are obliged to seal, and subsequently to pierce, the two ends which you desire to join. The disposition which this operation gives to their sides very much facilitates the soldering.
Finally, when the tubes are of a very different diameter, you must draw out the extremity of the larger and cut it where the part drawn out corresponds in diameter to the tube which it is to be joined to. [Pl. 1], fig. 9 and 15, exhibit examples of this mode of adapting tubes to one another.
For lateral solderings you must dispose the tubes in such a manner that the sides of the orifices which you desire to join together coincide with each other completely. See [pl. 1], fig. 7.
When the holes are well prepared, you heat at the same time the two parts that are to be soldered together, and join them at the moment when they enter into fusion. You must push them slightly together, and continue to heat successively all their points of contact; whereupon the two tubes soon unite perfectly. As it is almost always necessary, when you desire the soldering to be neatly done, or the joint to be imperceptible, to terminate the operation by blowing, it is proper to prepare the extreme ends of the tubes before-hand. That end of the tube by which you intend to blow should be carefully drawn out, provided it be so large as to render drawing out necessary; and the other end of the tube, if large, should be closed with wax, as in [pl. 1], fig. 9, or if small, should be sealed at the lamp ([pl. 1], fig. 15). When the points of junction are perfectly softened, and completely incorporated with each other, you introduce a little air into the tube, which produces a swelling at the joint. As soon as this has taken place, you must gently pull the two ends of the joined tube in different directions, by which means the swelled portion at the joint is brought down to the size of the other parts of the tube, so that the whole surface becomes continuous. The soldering is then finished.
To solder a bulb or a cylinder between two points, to the extremity of a capillary tube, you cut and seal one of the points at a short distance from the bulb ([pl. 1], fig. 16), and at the moment when this extremity is in fusion you pierce it by blowing strongly at the other extremity. By this means the opening of the reservoir is terminated by edges very much widened, which facilitates considerably its being brought into juxta-position with the little tube. In order that the ends of the two tubes may be well incorporated the one with the other, you should keep the soldered joint for some time in the flame, and ought to blow in the tube, push the ends together and draw them asunder, until the protuberance is no longer perceptible.
If, after having joined two tubes, it should be found that there still exists an opening too considerable to be closed by simply pushing the two tubes upon one another, you can close such an opening by means of a morsel of glass, applied by presenting the fused end of an auxiliary tube.
You should avoid soldering together two different species of glass—for example, a tube of ordinary glass with a tube of flint-glass; because these two species of glass experience a different degree of contraction upon cooling, and, if joined together while in a fused state, are so violently pulled from one another as they become cool, that the cohesion of the point of soldering is infallibly overcome, and the tube breaks. You ought also, for a similar reason, to take care not to accumulate a greater mass of glass in one place than in another.
If the first operation has not been sufficient to complete the soldering, the tube must be again presented to the flame, and again pushed together at the joint, or drawn asunder, or blown into, according as it may appear to be necessary. In all cases the soldering is not truly solid, but inasmuch as the two masses of glass are well incorporated together, and present a surface continuous in all points.
The mineralogical flame ([pl. 1], fig. 1, A´ B) is that which is to be employed in preference to the larger flame, when you desire to effect a good joining: it is sufficient to proportion the size of the flame to the object you wish to execute.