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.
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