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A newbies journey into the jewellery world- Week 8
Week 8 already and there’s so much more I want to do before the course finishes, time is beginning to run away with me!
Top advice for making bangles!
This week I continued on my quest to make a set of bangles! This time with a little more difficulty than before. Using a 1.5mm silver wire I cut a length of 21cm and bent it in so the edges met. This wasn’t neat but this doesn’t matter as it is shaped after soldering. I filed the edges down using a needle file so that they were straight and therefore met tightly. It was then ready for soldering, which turned out to be a little more difficult!
I prepared the bangle as previously by putting it on a supabloc and surrounding it with two other supablox to keep the head in when soldering. I then applied flux to the join and heated until the flux bubbled, then applied a small bit of hard solder strip to the join and began to heat the entire bangle. As I did this the join pinged open! It did this a couple of times so I was advised to tie it down using binding wire to try and prevent this. I pushed binding wire through a honeycomb block and tied down on either side of the join. This held the join down a bit better. I was also advised to begin heating from the back of the bangle which actually pushes the join together as the heat moves around the bangle. This worked much better and after heating the solder melted.
Unfortunately for me there was more heat on one side of the join than the other and so the solder only flowed onto one side, not sealing the joint. This was easily corrected by heating the opposite side up more which caused the solder to jump to the hotter area and seal the joint. I used a soldering poker to help encourage the solder to move across.
After what seemed like an eternity I had finally finished the bangle. It was then time to join it to another bangle and attach a domed charm I had made previously using doming and granulation techniques. Using silver wire I made a smaller jump ring that fitted through the charm and fitted around the two bangles. I then soldered this using easy solder paste. As I used the paste which already contains a flux, there was no need to flux the area beforehand saving me a bit of time.
The bangle (pictured beside) is now ready to be polished to a high shine using polishing papers. I’ll avoid the charm as this will ensure that the darkened effect I created previously using liver of sulphur on the charm will remain intact.
Making a toggle clasp
The next task was to attempt to make a toggle clasp for the link bracelet I have been making over the last few weeks. I decided to attach a jump ring to a piece of silver wire to make the clasp. Firstly I made a small jump ring using a 1mm thickness of wire and soldered this together. I then filed a part of the jump ring so that it had more of a flat edge to it. Next I cut down a small piece of 1.5mm wire in a size that will fit through a link of my bracelet but without falling out. This will make up the bar of my toggle clasp.
I applied flux to the flat edge of the jump ring and heated it. Then I picked up a small piece of solder using the flat edge, as the flux had just been heated the solder stuck directly to it. I used medium solder (as I used hard to solder the jump ring) I then heated the jump ring until the solder flowed, then holding the jump ring nearby with insulated tweezers I heated the bar until it got hot, as soon as it got hot I put the jump ring on to the bar and continued to heat it until the solder flowed and joined the two together. This was then pickled and is ready to be polished before attaching it to my link bracelet. (The unfinished link bracelet id pictured beside)
Finishing a pendant!
Another project I managed to finish this week was the copper and silver heart pendant I had made previously. I used polishing papers to get a nice polished finish on the piece, I then attached a jump ring to it and soldered this shut. I brought a silver chain to attach the pendant to and it’s ready to go!
Fusing wire loops
This week I have also managed to start a new project. I was inspired by our new book: The Encyclopedia of Wire Jewellery Techniques by Sara Withers which had a great project showing you how to fuse wire loops. I decided to make some and then transform them in to a bracelet. I brought a couple of meters of 1mm thickness silver wire, then using snipe nose pliers I wrapped four loops around a narrow neck of a bottle to get an even round shape. After four loops I used side cutters to cut the wire and then using the snipe nose pliers I wrapped both loose ends around the loops. I repeated this until I had 8 circles around the same size. These were then ready to be fused.
I placed each circle on the supabloc one at a time and heated them using a gas torch until the silver began to almost flow, I then quickly quenched them in water. This created a great rough effect to the silver. I now have 8 of these circles (pictured beside) ready to join together with jump rings to finish the bracelet.
Only two weeks left of the course now and I’ve got lots more to do if I’m going to get everything finished, I better get a move on!
To read Katie's last blog post click here!
24th November 2010