Robert Davey
Electronics Club
Run one evening a week by the chemistry teacher. Dark mahogany lab benches, polished out chemical scorches and the whiff of sulphuric acid. Finding projects in electronics magazines to build our own gadgets—radios, burglar alarms, sound synthesizers. . .
Learning to decipher the arcane symbols of circuit diagrams. Electrical components bought by mail order. Transistors, three-legged insects, their different coloured bodies cylindrical or cubic. Resistors, with four coloured bands that tell the expert the resistance in ohms. Waxy capacitors and coils we wind ourselves.
Mica boards, one side burnished copper, on which we paint the circuit diagram, which once dry is immersed in acid. The next week paint stripper reveals the circuit diagram in shining copper: an array of tramlines, with stations where the components will be placed.
Then hand drills to make the holes for the component terminals. Soldering irons to fix them in place: the grey worm of solder melting with an acrid whiff to a quicksilver bead. Carefully holding soldering iron and component steady until the solder tethers the terminal to its hole in the circuit board. Then onto the next component. And the next.
And finally connecting the battery, and hoping, after all these weeks, that it works. . .
molten solder the moment the gleam's tremor stills
About the Author
Robert Davey is a gatherer of moss in Norfolk, England, checker of locks, helper, occasional haver of fun, lover of boats and books, photographer (mediocre) and reawoken writer of haiku and haibun.