Cont. Module 2 (2 posts in as many days, shock!)

PROJECT 24

 

This is called a solitaire setting. Simple engagement ring style. We were given a plain pre-cast shank and the setting, also in raw form. We had to shape the shank so that it fit within the prongs of the setting, solder it together, and set the stone. Polish and make pretty. I decided to make it a little more fun by filing into the prongs. The tips are filed into points so it kind of looks like a six fingered claw holding the stone. I got a fun reaction out of one of my classmates for getting this little design in. Go me. 

PROJECT 25

 

Finally getting around to setting this damn ring that we've re-sized and re-shanked over and over. Anyway, setting just like the practice: drill a seat into the inside of each prong, settle the stone in, pull prongs in to hold the stone. Not making a bold for project 26- simple re-polishing of the free form ring. Yawn. Project 27 & 28 were to learn how to retip a prong that has been "worn down" and reprong in the case that it may have broken off. The crap picture you see is after all of that. Retipping is building up soft solder to give some height back to it, and repronging is soldering on another prong. Because of the broken prong (god I've said prong too many times, sounds like gibberish) a stone came out so that had to be reset.

Project 29 was to resize up or down (again!!) the free form ring. Since I was dissatisfied with the shank entirely, I replaced it.

PROJECT 30

 

This setting is called a round basket. First we had to roll out our own wire. The general idea of a basket setting is being able to set a stone of any size based on its diameter. There's a calculation and being me, rather than follow directions and use a special mandrel for sizing the jump rings that form the basket, I decided to do the math and measure out the length of the wire that way. I ended up with rings 1 mm larger than they were supposed to be. Ah well. Anyway, took 2 long pieces of wire, crossed them, and soldered them. When you bend them up starting a little bit away from the intersection, you get the 4 posts for soldering to the rings. Starting with the smaller ring you solder on the 4 posts on the outer edge (drilled into the outside sides of the ring and inside sides of the posts so that they linked together, log cabin style, soldered at those joints). Soldered the larger ring ~1.5 mm higher up the post from the smaller ring. Evened all the posts out until the correct height. Cut out the bottom cross section that held the posts at the bottom. Then created what is called a rabbit ear bail. Also improvised a little on that one. The object is to take 2 long pieces of wire, fuse them at either end (no solder used, just lots of heat, yay torches! You can tell I wrote this post late at night). Fold it in half. I then fused the tips together. The manual didn't say how to keep the bail closed so it could be inserted in between the two rings and not keep popping open. Anyway, fusing worked, soldered it to the basket, opened the wire to get the bunny ears bit. Set the stone- and by the way, the stone doesn't just sit on the top ring, you still have to drill seats into the prongs so that the stone can rest just above the ring. Can't see it, but filed my prongs pointy again. I like it so much better that way.

PROJECT 31

 

This project I liked. We had to create another basket, oval this time. Used the mandrel this time as well. Side view so now you get the idea of what the basket looks like from the side. Also created the shank from scratch literally. Started with scrap metal, melted it down, rolled out a square bar, flattened it a little, filed in the shape I wanted (vaguely circle shaped). Although, when I first tried to solder my basket to the shank, the posts melted, caved in, and died. Sigh. I was able to salvage the rings but had to repost. Second attempt was much better anyway- they were on straighter and didn't look bitten up to all hell. For soldering the posts the oval method was to create U shapes out of 2 pieces of wire and have each arm be a post. That way the posts extended past the bottom of the smaller ring. Good thing for me because on recommendation from the woman who sits next to me, I drilled spots for the posts to rest in on either side of the shank, securing it. Made it really easy to solder the basket to the ring, just soldered those joints. File the bottom of the posts and it looks fine. Ignore the little pearly things, those are just the pins holding the ring up. As of this blog-posting this is my latest complete project, so now we're all on the same page. Huzzah!!

Cont. Mod. 1, Beginning Module 2

PROJECT 14

 

To make these earrings I first started out with 2 tiny circles of metal. There's this awesome cube that you slide a sheet of metal into. There are sharp edges so when you slide the bar into the hole and give a good strong whack with a rawhide mallet, you pop out a circle. Next there is a tool called a dapping die. You place the piece of flat metal into the depression in the cube and tap it spherical using a dapper. Drilled a tiny hole next into the top of my little domes. Cut wire I already had, soldered it in place through the hole. The bead was 1/2 drilled, so next step was using some epoxy glue to secure the post and dome to the bead. Filed the edges smooth, some polish, and voila, ball stud earrings.

PROJECT 15

 

This was a fun one. We were given a square piece of metal as a base, and a long rectangular piece called bezel wire, of fine silver rather than sterling. The first objective is to wrap the wire around the cabochon stone (flat back) to get the correct length needed. Next step we soldered the wire to the base. I melted mine at the seam. Woops. So, forging ahead I just cut myself a new bezel wire. Also ended up using a different piece of metal for my base. The pre-cut square given to us wasn't large enough around for what I wanted to do later on. Successfully soldered the bezel wire on my second try. Rather than just file all the edges completely down, I made a fun design using simple needle files (very handy those). Cut out, shaped, and soldered on the bale (what the chain threads through). Polish piece, and then finally place the stone in the setting (always the last thing to be done). When I tried to push the top edges of my bezel wire in I couldn't for the life of me get it. Took it over to Frank, who also tried, and commented on how hard it was. "Is this fine silver?" Ahhh, no. Fine silver is supposed to fold in like butter, sterling, not so much. Frank used a special dapping tool that goes into the flex shaft and that gives way more power to the tapping motion to push the bezel wire in.

PROJECT 16

No pictures, taking the rings from before and re-sizing again. Down 2 sizes.

PROJECT 17

No pictures, size up both rings 3/4 size.

PROJECT 18

Only needed to reshank one ring- I chose the prong setting ring.

PROJECT 19 & 20

Chain repairs #5 and 6. #5 was another box chain, easy peasy. #6 was similar to what is called an idiot's delight chain. Where my teacher cut the links for me to repair ended up actually soldering pretty easily after finally getting used to soldering really small spots with not too much solder. I can see how it would be a problem- using too much solder and you end up with solid links.

PROJECT 21

Called a prong plate. When it was first finished there were 11 prongs in total, and standing up more or less straight. Take a flat sheet of silver, solder on silver wire. Basic skill was to learn how to solder wires like that close together without melting the one you did before. I used up some prongs for a future project.

PROJECT 22

This was practice setting. We had to take the crown settings provided to us, solder them to the copper base, and then set the stone. A channel is cut into the top of each prong on its inner side. Place stone, bend prongs in. Round off the tips. Did 5 in total.

PROJECT 23

 

Simple 4 prong stud. Each crown does not come with a solid bottom. To fill it in, we had to create a ball of silver and solder that into the hole, then file flat. I used prong from the prong plate to create the beads (apply torch to wire until wire melts and balls up on its own). Next solder on the post to the back. Make setting shiny and pretty. Set stone in the same way as practiced. Remove any scratches, ensure sparkliness and call it done.

The New Adventure

It's mind boggling that it has already been one month since I've started my program. It's flown and will probably only seem to go faster. I've already learned so much. And it's fun too! No matter how tired I am when I wake up, after getting to class and beginning work, time just passes by. I look up from my work and it's lunchtime, and after that, I look up again and it's time to go. I enjoy being there. I can't say I've ever been this happy to learn something.
I have taken pictures of what I've done so far. Some are better pictures than before, but again, still not getting the lighting quite right. In any case I do have a picture of the only nice part of my bedroom:

 

And my lamp:

Why do I put a picture of the lamp? It's just a lamp. But, I designed it. It was a plain white lampshade and I bought some fabric markers. Drew out a design in pencil, followed up with the black outline, and went in with the colors. And enjoyable little project. Here's a composite image of the whole lampshade (not a perfect lineup of the pictures, but the best I could do).

  

So, I've put up some pictures of what I've done so far, but I hope to replace them (again) with better images. I've described a little bit for some of the projects how they're done, but have left out a bunch of steps. There are certain procedures that are done when you're manipulating metal- rolling it out, forging it, etc. All the work on the metal hardens it up, so to make it more malleable again you do what is called annealing: apply flame to metal until it just starts to glow (copper gets kind of cherry red, silver glows a deeper red). Then as soon as you see that glow, you quench in water. Within one project a piece of metal goes through multiple annealing.

PROJECT 1

This is just a simple copper ring, wedding band style. It's already started to oxidize so it looks kinda nasty. It looks a lot better after it's just been burnished. Basic skill we learned with this project: obviously how to solder and shape a ring. Also how to get the curved edges to give the ring its rounder appearance (simple needle files).

PROJECT 2

 

Another copper band. Skill learned was how to create the shape in the ring. Again, looks much better just after it's been burnished. In order to do this we divided the width of the band into thirds. We used a jeweler's saw (and yes the blades are that small) to create 2 lines circling the band, sawing only as deep as the thickness of the blade, which isn't thaaat thick. Then we used our needle files to file the angle into the ring. The center section then had its square edges filed round.

PROJECT 3

 

  

  

These 3 pieces were a lesson in taking a piece from its raw casted state to "store ready". When we first received them they had the remnants of what is called a sprue. When it's in its wax form this is the piece of wax that attached the ring to the "tree". To give a visual I found an example:

Eventually we'll learn how to do this- carving the wax rings, making the wax tree, attaching the wax rings to the tree, making the mold, melting out the wax, and then casting the metal into the mold. Anywho, after casting is finished all the rings are cut off the tree, the sprue still attached. Our project was to file down the sprue, make sure everything was even, and shine the buggers up, aka store ready. 

PROJECT 4 

The piercing project- basically learning how to cut out an image into a piece of metal. Make a pendant out of it. I got to skip this project. Because I'm just awesome like that. Actually, mostly because I already proved I could accomplish this skill successfully when I came to visit and they allowed me to make a piece of jewelry of my own, which some of you have seen in person:

PROJECT 5

 

The rope chain bracelet. This project was really involved. We started with raw pellets of silver, melted them into an ingot about 3 inches long, bar shaped, maybe 4-5 mm thick. Then, using a special press we rolled it out into a square shaped wire a little under 2 mm thick. With all the pressing the metal into a thinner shape, the metal got longer and turned into wire. Then using what is called a draw plate we pulled the wire through the holes to change the wire from square shaped to rounded and down to 1 mm thick. Next we took the wire and coiled it up tightly around a flat piece of metal. When we slid the coil off the metal it was tight, like a spring. Took the jeweler's saw blade and sawed straight down the coil to get all the jump rings. Next came all the intense amounts of soldering links into each other to make the bracelet. Definitely good practice. We also rolled out a flat sheet, cut the shapes for the end tabs that get soldered onto the ends of the chain. And the shapes for the "sister hook" clasp. After assembly is finished, the burnishing and rouging came next.

PROJECT 6 & 7

No pictures for this- 2 chain repairs. First one was definitely easiest, a simple box chain probably about as thick as the one shown (2 mm). Got it on my 4th try. And second drove me a little crazy. Loose rope chain. Sort of like the one pictured, only thinner. The links were sooooooo thin. I kept melting the chain before the bead of solder could flow. I started with a chain about 6 inches long and by the time I finally got it, I had had to cut off about 3 inches of failed attempts.

PROJECTS 8 & 9

Again, no pictures. For these two we took the rings that we had previously shined up and made store ready. First we sized each one down 1 size (2.5 mm). Basically cut out 2.5 mm of the shank (body of the ring) and solder it together. To be considered complete the rings had to be shined up again (applying heat, soldering, throwing into pickle, etc, makes the ring lose all the sparkly). Next, we took the same rings and sized them back up 1 size. That required rolling out a piece of metal that was square shaped to be a little thicker than the shank itself. We sawed the ring open at the old solder seam. 2.5 mm of this square bar was to then be soldered into the opening in the shank. Since the insert was thicker, it had to be filed down to match the shape of the rest of the ring. Again, had to be shined up to be considered complete. 

PROJECT 10

Chain repair #3. Even though I did this one more recently, I cannot for the life of me remember what kind of chain it was. All I know is that it was waaaaaaay easier than #2. 

PROJECT 11

We once again used the rings but this time we reshanked them entirely. That means cutting off the main body of the ring and soldering a new one on. Also, we had to make sure hen completed it fit out own finger. Everyone calls it a butterfly, but I call it a flower. Anyway, that ring was fairly simple in taking some leftover square wire from sizing it up and using that as my new shank. The other ring though, because of its shape, needed a flatter piece of metal so that it could remain wider closer to the setting, and then be filed thinner towards the base of the ring. I had some leftover flat as well, but it was a weeeeee bit too short in the end. The ring ended up measuring about a 1.5 which did not even get past my pinky knuckle. There is a method to stretching the metal out and making the ring larger. Placed the ring onto the mandrel, tapped the shank back and forth using a ball peen hammer. In order to get an even amount of tapping you have to constantly flip the ring over. Anyway, I managed to tap it up to a size 4.5, finished filing into its correct shape, and shined the sucker up.

PROJECT 12

 

This was the first project I felt I could really take personal creative liberty with. The drawing in our manual just has the forged earrings as a simple circular hoop. I decided to give it my own twist. For this project we again had to measure out square lengths of wire at a certain thickness. Forging is using the ball peen and hammering the metal flat. When you hammer on the outside edge the metal curves into a circle. There is a press in the shop for shaping metal into rings and I used this to start the process of curling the end in rather than it just be a plain circle. The rest I just did by hand using 1/2 round pliers. Next had to pull some wire in order to make the posts, soldered them on. The tail end of the earring was originally squared off, but again, did something different. I filed them into points. To get the detailing on the metal I improvised with what I had- I used something called a center punch. This tool is normally used to punch an indentation into metal as a groove to rest a drill bit in when needing to drill a hole. Pressing the tool down all the way gets you the larger indentation. Carefully pressing down a little, you get the smaller mark. Needless to say I experimented on some scrap metal before going for it on the earrings. Still managed to make a couple of mistakes (pressing too hard). In order to get the design to show up more I painted on some patina (a sulfur mixture). I let it get really black, applied some flame to bond it. Then carefully burnished off the patina so all that was left was the black in the marks.

I totally feel like a bragging teacher's pet, but the instructors really liked what I did. Yoko said she'd never seen anyone else do that before with this project in terms of curling in the ends and pointing them. I also feel like such a 5 year old, but out grade sheet has E for excellent, P for pass, and I for incomplete. Frank, the teacher who has been recording my grades has been giving me Ps, which is great. For this project though he was really impressed and even said excellent. I think he doesn't realize that the grading sheet has the possibility for Es. I remember Yoko even mentioned to me that they used to only use P and I, but for some reason added the E recently. And I really want an E for this. Again, I'm 5 not 24, really.

PROJECT 13

Chain repair #4: rope chain about that size.

I hope you guys liked hearing about what I've done so far. I'll try (again) to get up better pictures.