from white to black to color

Just now finished this new batch of pendants - will probably list one in my etsy shop later today.

designing and fabricating "elan"

Last week I was contacted by Deb N. a customer on etsy to see if I could make her a pendant with a clear angel face, similar to one I had already listed on etsy that had a red angel face. I said sure! After we decided on a design she asked if I could take some photos during the creation of her pendant. I thought that was a great idea - a wonderful way to chronicle what happens in the fabrication of a piece. So here is the "story".

She had pointed me in the direction of a piece I did that she liked and then after a few more conversations back and forth she sent me this drawing - also saying that she liked peacock feathers. I love to get something like this - it really gives me a direction to go in:

This is the design I sketched from her drawing and another piece beside it that Deb said she liked.

 Here are all the stones that will eventually be in the piece sitting in their bezels. At the top is a simulated white opal, a clear frosted glass face with mirror backing, two 5 mm round pink CZs and at the bottom an 8 x 10 mm simulated pink tourmaline.

 Shown above with a roll of fine silver bezel wire.  I cut the wire to the correct length and then solder the edges together for the bezels. Usually I have to do adjustments to the heights of the bezels - especially for faceted stone bezels.

 Above, a bezel is shown just before soldering. It's being held steady in a pair of tweezers and there is a small square of solder in place on top.

 Some of my favorite and most used hand tools. From left to right: 2 bezel mandrels (for making the bezels a perfect round or oval shape after they are soldered together), chain nose pliers, metal shears for cutting bezel wire, the round white base of a magnifying glass on a movable arm, assorted sizes and shapes of files, a small plastic headed mallet and a larger one with a plastic and a rubber face - at the very top are rolls of bezel wire.

 

Drawing the design onto tracing paper.

 

Ready now to cut the pieces apart and glue onto the sterling sheet.

 Here the tracings are glued onto the sterling sheet. The body of the pendant will be made from 22 gauge and the feathers will be 20 gauge.

Sawing one of the feathers with a jewelry saw. Below the sawing area is a bucket to catch small pieces of sterling that fall - I don't want to waste any.

Close-up of how fine the saw blade is.

 The sterling parts are now all cut out (they still have the tracing paper on them) and I put them in place with the stones and their bezels just to see how everything looks together.

 I use metal stamps to put detail on the feathers after filing the edges. I bevel the edges so it will be smooth to the touch in the final piece.

 Stamping the name, "Elan" and my wood thrush studio maker's mark and a sterling mark on the back.

This shows the letter stamps and the hammer I use. After this stage I also file all the edges smooth on the base piece and sand everything.

 This shows the back of the feathers with solder squares in place for "sweat soldering". First the solder is melted onto the backs of the small pieces, then they will be put in place on the back plate and heated again till the solder flows and joins the top and bottom pieces.

 The solder after being melted into place.

 The feathers are put in the pickle - pickle is the name for the acid that is used to remove oxidation from metal after soldering. The oxidation has to be removed before they can soldered again. Solder will not run on dirty metal.

 My soldering set-up. From left to right: the soldering blocks and fire bricks that I use to support things that I am soldering - they are on a lazy-susan type base which makes it easier for me to get the torch's heat into the right places, behind them you can see the yellow mapp gas canisters that are attached to the torches I use, the "pickle pot" -which is actually just a small crock pot, a bowl of water to rinse the pickle off, and in front of that a torch sparker and assorted tweezers.

My two torches - a pencil torch which has the torch tip on a hose so it is easier to get into small places (I use it for tiny jobs like jump rings and making chain links) and on the right is the bigger torch that I use for everything else.

 I'm ready now to solder the feathers and bezels down. See the little pieces of solder beside the bezels. When the solder gets hot enough to melt it will flow into place and seal the gaps between the base plate and the bezels. Hot solder likes to flow into crevasses. I have put clear flux on the piece to retard oxidation while it is being heated but you can't see it in the photos.

After soldering.

 In the pickle.

 Nice and clean - ready to bend the bail back and solder it in place on the back. After that it is pickled again and then re-oxidized with "silver black". This is a step that I forgot to get a photo of. You will have to take my word for it that everything that looks so nice and white became nice and black after I brushed the oxidizing liquid on it. Next I sanded the black oxidation off of the high areas and did a pre-polish.

 The pendant is shown now with the stones ready to be set in it. I cut pieces of gasket material to fit in the bottom of the cabochon bezels so the cabochons can be brought up to the right height. Inside the faceted stone bezels (the 2 round bezels at the tips of the feathers and the large oval at the bottom) there are shorter bezels that hold the faceted stones inside up to the right height.

 I am pushing the bezel over a stone edge to hold it in place.

 This shows the "bezel pusher" tool. Just one last stone to set - the oval at the bottom.

Final polish done and finished! I think it turned out quite nicely. I like the delicate pink colors Deb choose to go with the angel face for this.

shiva transformed

Hard to believe that it has been over a year since I posted anything on here! It's not that I haven't been doing anything jewelry-wise - I just haven't had the urge to write about it here. So to get back in the habit of posting...

I finished this piece last week and was very happy with it. I call it "Transforming". Here's the inspiration for it and the beginning steps in making it - cutting out all the different parts before texturing and soldering:

Shiva is the Hindu god of endings and transformation. Shiva in the pose of the statue in the photo is called "Lord of the Dance". I chose a red jasper (opaque) stone for the bottom stone and a Orissa garnet (transparent) stone for the top to imply positive re-genesis.

another roller textured piece

Oh, I forgot  - yes, I have gotten another piece finished lately - read more about it here at my etsy shop. 

roller texture earrings and learning repousse

It's been slow going lately without getting much done here but I did get a chance to finish a couple pair of roller textured copper earrings last week. Karen wanted a pair of copper earrings with springy wire decos and beads so I made 2 extra pairs with different shapes of leaves and different beads so she could have a choice for her favorites. Here are the 2 pair that she didn't choose: 

What I have been doing is learning repousse. Nothing to show that I would want to put in a finished piece yet - just doing lots of practicing. Here is a trial piece from the front:

From the back:

Repousse is a French word meaning "to push". In metal working it is taking a flat sheet of metal and hammering it from the back with punches to make volume, refining it from the front also and then usually finishing the front with texture of some sort or planishing it smooth. Here is the set-up that I am using - the bowl of pitch that holds the metal while it's being worked on (pitch offers just the right amount of resistance to the hammer blows - allows the metal to move where it is being struck but keeps the area around that still), a cup of repousse tools in the upper left corner and the chasing hammer on the right. You need a lightweight hammer to strike the tools as the metal can only be moved very slowly. To get much height or detail you need to frequently anneal your metal and rework it over and over again: 

Close-up of the tools in hand and a very excellent book on the subject in the background:

I love these tools - they are works of art in themselves! From www.mettleworks.com. 

rolling mill

I'm very excited that I recently got my own rolling mill. I have seen others work using a rolling mill and loved the organic effects. Dry leaves, thread, dry flowers, cut paper or handmade paper, thin wire, fabric are just a few of the things that can be used to texture silver, copper and brass. I was kind of afraid to use it on silver since the price of silver is so high right now - the new mill sat there unused for about a week - till I remembered - oh, Copper! Brass! Today was the first day to really try it out and this was my first texture on copper - a skeletal leave:

 I've already worked up a jewelry design to use this that I think will be pretty cool. I hope to show the finished pendant next week!

 

phoenix finished!

I finished both the phoenix pendant and a pair of earrings for a friend yesterday. Feels good to keep moving forward. Since I have been caring for my mom full time the last 3 years it seems like I get slower and slower in my jewelry work each year.

"Dare to Rise Up from the Ash" - sterling, copper, brass, simulated sapphire, enamel on fine silver, garnet and amber, and "Angel" earrings - sterling and garnet.

phoenix progress #2

I finished the four enamel shield shapes for the phoenix last week and Chelsea choose #3:

I'll probably use the others someday in other pendants. I have made enough progress on the phoenix that I'm soldering down the bezels, the silver balls and the cut out copper wings today. The little sticks of solder laying on the neck will melt and then I can attach balls there too:

 

I love looking at the roughness of everything at his stage, on the burnt surface of the soldering block. When it is finished it will be so totally different.

completed and ready to go!

Friday - "Precious Gift" with garnets, "Perfect" with simulated opals, "Sun Circle" with amber, "Peace" with simulated blue zircon, and "Inner Vision 8" with ceramic faces and glass beads. It took me a little longer than Wednesday to get finished but they are ready to go now!

earrings assembly

Right now I'm working on 5 pairs of earrings - in a batch. It's easier to get all the bezels made at the same time, all the silver cut out and filed at the same time and do each stage's work as if I'm my own little assembly line. Where I'm at today:

Hopefully tomorrow or Wednesday I will have everything soldered together and perhaps even the stones set and everything polished...

a little about polishing stones

Just for interest - photos of a project I'm doing - creating a stone to fit in this ring setting. The original stone broke and was lost and the customer asked me to create a new stone and reset it. Shown with it's future setting and with the size of stone I started with. An 8 by 10mm oval seemed like a good starting point to grind down to the 4 by 8.5mm oblong size I need for the setting:

The little black onyx stone on it's dop stick - I spent yesterday grinding it to this shape with 120 diamond grit. The dop stick is basically just a wooden dowel with dopping wax melted on the end. The dopping wax is very sticky when hot and pliable so it can be attached to the stone but at room temperature it gets hard and can hold the stone while you work on it. When I'm all done I will put it in the freezer and the stone should pop off easily:

This is the spool polisher I will use today to get a nice polish on the little stone. Those syringes in back hold grades of diamond cream which correspond to the different areas on the spool that I will apply the cream to. I will work the stone from 350 grit up through 50,000 grit to a high shine: 

I will need to do some adjustments to the silver ring setting too. I think the original stone broke and fell out because it needed a more stable base for the stone so I will be adding a sterling plate to make a solid bottom for the setting.