I know my silversmithing posts aren't very popular, but I do want to keep this blog as a journal for me too, so I'm going to post about it anyway! Also, I love this piece, I'm so proud of it.
I posted about my copper triangle at the end of last year. I then went on to make one out of silver and I'm in love with it!
This is a hollow form. It's made with 0.8mm sheet silver, cut and soldered together and then filed to remove the joins. The top piece has been textured by rolling it through a mill with a piece of fabric.
After finishing, I drilled a hole across one of the points to string it.
The back was polished to perfection, but I've worn it a lot and it's become marked already!
I strung it on a pre-bought sterling-silver chain. I think it works perfectly with the design. Now I just need to string the copper version...
This was something I was making in Silversmithing class last year. I was going to post about it when I finished it, but I never actually finished it and don't know when/if I'll come back to is, so I'm posting it now for posterity.
These were to be domed pendents. They are hollow forms. They were made by annealing sheets of 1mm copper and cutting discs out with a disc cutter. I then put them into a doming forming and hammered them to create the curve. A tiny slot is filed out on one of them for each pair, on either side. This is to make it easier to drill them later.
One is placed on top of another, with solder in between. This is the difficulty. Balancing 5 pieces of tiny solder, then lowering the lid on without any of the solder moving... It frustrated me so much I almost cried! I have some silver circles cut out ready to make domed pendents, but they will have to wait until my skills improve!
It's been ages since I showed you anything from my silversmithing classes. I was working on some hollow domes, but I couldn't get them to solder together and gave up. I will go back to them at a later date, when my head is a bit better.
I moved on to a different hollow form, I chose a triangle.
This is the copper prototype. Silver is expensive and it can be worthwhile having a go in copper first, especially as I love copper and wear copper jewellery too. It started with a long thin piece of copper (5mm thin, about 8cm long) that I had to score very heavily. I pulled it round and soldered the join. This was then soldered to piece of sheet copper which I had run through the rolling mill with a piece of lace to imprint a pattern on it.
The second side was soldered on - you can see the solder really well in this picture.
The sheet was pierced with a saw close to the edge, then the filing began. And continued. And continued. And then out came the sandpaper... I still have some way to go!
I have now started on the silver version, thinking I'd do some sanding over Christmas, I took some photos to show you the beginning of the process, but they were on my old phone... I will show you again when both pieces are completed.
