Copper and silver necklace

There'll be no review of 2018 or goals for 2019 from me.  I did so little craft last year, I can barely believe it.  I would like to craft more this year, but I'm not putting any pressure on myself, so I'll make what I make and post when I post!

I finished this necklace before Christmas.  I've shown you peeks of me making it.  In this post from March last year, I showed you a bit of the technique!  Making soldered chain IS a time-consuming process, but I'm also quite slow and made various other things at the same time!

It's made from copper and sterling silver.  I made large jump rings, soldered them and cleaned them up, then rolled them through the rolling mill to flatten them.  They were then hammered to add texture.  I then made what felt like about a gazillion small jump rings and soldered it all together.  I then spent a LONG time filing and sanding each and every link!

It is finished with a hand made and hammered toggle clasp.  I love it.  I love mixed metal jewellery and I love rings like this.  I'm not sure I'd embark on making another chain from scratch though!

A present for a friend

I am now at that age where my friends are turning 40.  Yes, I'm 40, good guess!  It was my oldest friend's 40th last weekend, 2 weeks before the event I suddenly realised I needed to buy her a present.  She's not an easy person to buy for... I decided something handmade would be more suitable.

I'd been thinking about an idea of making a pendent using 3 different size circles.  I cut them out of 1mm thick sterling silver sheet using a circle punch.  The mid-sized circle was left blank.  The larger and smaller circles were texturised before punching them out.

The smallest circle is patterned using a centre punch and hammer to make tiny indentations.  The largest circle was rolled through the rolling mill with a skeleton leaf.  I adore this pattern and have it in mind for some future makes.  As the pieces had burrs after punching, I had to file and sand to clean them up.  The smallest circle got a stick soldered to the reverse and the larger two had holes punched through.

This "stick" (a piece of 0.8mm round wire) was inserted through the other 2 circles, then I just used the round nosed pliers to make a bail before filing and sanding the edge.

It was really hard to take photos as I had put it in the barrel polisher, meaning it's very shiny!  I've just put it on a bought trace chain, also in sterling silver.  

This was a pretty quick make.  When I told my tutor my plans, she said I could get it done in half a session.  It actually took me a session and a half, but I work really slowly and do rather a lot of talking and eating!

Oh, and yes, the friend liked it!

poor defeated spinner ring

One of my earliest projects in silversmithing class was this fiddle ring.  I loved that ring and wore it every day.  I made it to fit on my middle finger.  Then I lost some weight.  You couldn't tell I'd lost weight, none of it came off my fat bits, it all came off my fingers!  The ring was too big... and no, I can't wear it on my thumb, my thumb is smaller than my middle finger.  I gave it to my BFF and set out to make another.

Complete and utter failure!  I only had a small piece of silver that wasn't long enough, so I rolled it through the rolling mill with a texture, and soldered on some copper.  I quite liked the two tone effect.  I made the small outer ring from square wire.  

Once the main ring is soldered, The outside is domed to keep the smaller ring in place.  The join between the silver and copper split.  I straightened, re-soldered, domed, it split.  Again and again.  Finally, I managed it!  I put the smaller ring on, domed the other end, and...

It doesn't spin!!  The outer ring is too small.

Failure.

Silversmithing update

It's been a while since I did a silversmithing update.  After the summer break, then a further enforced break whilst I had a broken shoulder, I went back to class in January.  

I've been working on the necklace that I started last year.  The copper was so tarnished it had to go in the pickle before I started.  I don't know what came over me when I decided to completely hand make a chain, madness!  The picture above is me trying to keep track of which rings were soldered, which ones were next and which grade of solder I'd used.  Solder comes in Hard, Medium, Easy and Extra Easy.  Hard has the highest melting point, so you start with this one.  If you solder something and it comes into contact with the flame again, you want it to be a higher grade so it doesn't remelt.  This would have been a lot easier to tackle if I didn't have a pattern to the chain involving copper and silver rings and larger silver rings!

I feel like I'm going to be soldering this forever.

For a bit of a break, I started another project.  Back in 2016 I made a fiddle ring.  I loved that ring and wore it every day.  Then I lost some weight.  None came off my ample behind or tummy, it came off my fingers!  Yeah, great, thanks body!  The ring no longer fits.  It was time for a new one.

I didn't have a long enough piece of silver, so I added in a copper section!  Since this photo, I filed it down and cleaned it up, but when I came to dome it (to accept the spinner ring), the solder cracked.  I'll be re-soldering this tomorrow night.  And hopefully finishing soldering the necklace... which means I have several months of filing and sanding ahead of me!