Module 3

PROJECT 39

This is the 9 crown cluster project. We could either attach it to a ring or make a bale and have it as a pendant. I obviously went the route of ring. Anyway, to begin we were given 9 crowns. I can't find a picture of the tool we used, mostly because I don't know what it's called- but we were given a tool that holds the crowns in place upside down so we can solder them together. Started off with soldering 3 rows of 3 crowns. The shape of this holder is concave. When held right side up, the crowns then look curved, center crown being taller than the one on either side. Placed the 3 rows of crowns back on the tool and soldered them together. Rolled out a simple band, added lines that wrapped around the band so it wasn't entirely plain. Soldered the cluster of crowns to the band. The prongs that we were given had seats pre-cut into them. So, I put all my stones in, and, because of some imperfections in how I soldered the crowns together, some of the stones looked crooked and awkward. Then, while setting, broke half a prong. Salvaged it by using a ton of soft solder to build the tip back up. Because of the awkward sitting of some stones, had to take them out, cut the seats in certain prongs down a bit, reset, gave a final polish, and called it done. Didn't think I would like such a bling-y ring, but it's kind of awesome.

PROJECT 40

This is another exercise in channel setting, this time using baguette czs. For this one in particular, one side wall was filed to about half its thickness. The other untouched wall had the notches cut into it for each stone. Because of the shape of a baguette we had to cut a sort of v-shaped channel into the metal for the stones' tapered edges to rest in. Like the other channel setting, popped the stones into place. I kind of broke a few when trying to get them in... That's the other thing- each stone is sliiiiiiiiightly different in size and you need to put the larger ones in the center. You break it, you need to find another stone similar in size, and we are talking fractions of a mm. But it actually makes a huuuuuuge difference. Also, in real world situations, I would not have the benefit of a whole slew of stones to pick from to set. I might be given stones by a client to set, and I had better NOT break them. Yeh. Going to need a little more practice obviously. After putting the stones in place very carefully used a hammer and tool to tap the thinned wall over the stones so that they would now be held in place. If set well, the stones will not wobble (mine didn't wobble. Woot!! God, now wobble is in my head and sounds weird. Wobble wobble wobble...). Next, filed away any scratch marks, and made sure that metal looked straight from a front view. Final polish and call it done. This ring in particular, although the stones are set nicely and actually sit straight, the band kinda sucks. The casting of this metal was not such a great casting- too much porosity in the metal, porosity meaning little tiny bubbles of air in the metal. In some cases when it's only one or two bubbles and they're not too deep, you can file them away. There is also a tool that can be used with the flex shaft that pushes metal into the holes- you'd still need to be careful in burnishing because burnishing takes metal away and not much is pushed into the holes in the metal. In this case, nearly the entire ring has little tiny air bubbles.



So, after this I started project 41 which had the same casting shape as project 36. This time though we are to use triangular stones. I cleaned up the ring all nice and shiny but suspended work on the ring to complete a commissioned necklace:

This, I'm really proud of. I recycled old jewelry. Took the metal, melted it all down into 3 pieces. Took longer than you would think to roll them flat to the thickness I wanted- about .5 mm, a little larger. Need to constantly reheat the metal or else it gets too hard to work with. The pieces on the end are actually one piece of metal rather than cutting 3 small ovals and soldering them together. I hammered them so each oval would be convex. The 3 individual pieces that hold stones took also a lot of work. There is filigree work in there as well which can be time consuming. All in all it was 41 hours of work from start to finish.
Basically, this is the reason why I decided to go down this path. To be able to take silver that was an ingot, roll out, cut, and pound it into submission- and have this come out of it, there is immense satisfaction. Even though I'm an amateur, I consider myself a jeweler now. I love my design, but I can't see the piece without seeing its flaws. It drives me a little crazy. Can't work on it anymore though- it's been shipped off and hopefully they will love it as much as I cared about making it. To get a better look, click on the picture.