Lead free solder is, I find, notably harder to work with. It has a higher melting point, and doesn't seem to wet near as well. Flux is your friend here. It may also be easier to learn to do it with leaded solder and then switch to lead free.
(It's also quite possible that I just found it trickier to work with because I got used to the leaded stuff, so it may go just fine, of course!)
Hm, I should try that. dymaxion was trying to discourage me on grounds of the inhalation risk, but I did notice that the lead-free stuff doesn't flow easily.
lead-free is *horrible*. It doesn't wick worth beans. The vapor pressure on even molten lead at reflow temps is still pretty low. Put a little fan right beside it, sucking air away from it. The flux fumes are actually worse for you in the short term than the lead is. I've worked in places where people have been soldering electronics using lead for 20 years and still had high-normal blood lead ranges. It's primarily an ingestion danger.
I'm surprised you're felting in a machine rather than felting by hand. I've been felting daffodils (oh, what these art shows do to us!) and teaching felting to 8 and 9 year olds for the past couple of weeks. It's easier than you might think, but you're going to need to put quite a lot of pressure on your forms and might collapse them with your hands, anyways. :P Hm.
You might be able to preempt the spin cycle and rescue them before that, since in most machines that happens towards the end if I remember right... or does yours not work that way?
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(It's also quite possible that I just found it trickier to work with because I got used to the leaded stuff, so it may go just fine, of course!)
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The vapor pressure on even molten lead at reflow temps is still pretty low. Put a little fan right beside it, sucking air away from it.
The flux fumes are actually worse for you in the short term than the lead is. I've worked in places where people have been soldering electronics using lead for 20 years and still had high-normal blood lead ranges. It's primarily an ingestion danger.
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Do they get sewn together in the center?
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When I was doing laundry in Seattle I took to sitting on top of the machines reading a book to avoid theft, it was annoying, but effective.
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