This piece I actually made a while back and forgot that I had it. Small turquoise stone in the center. The beige is actually part of the stone and not a chip or anything. Since I seem to have an obsession with piercing, again, I drew out a design, glued it to the metal, sawed out the image, soldered on the bezel, made sure the piece was the color I wanted, and then last set the stone.
More piercing. This one I soldered silver domes onto, give it something a little extra. Originally it did not have this shiny appearance. I had cut out the the copper, did my soldering, and then fired it up. Something wasn't right though. After working on another piece I went back and used the technique I picked up. Smoothing the metal out, burnishing it up to a shine, and then firing.
In this project I had some fun trying to figure out how to set the stone in. Luckily, when I soldered the bezel into the design, I did not solder the swirls to the edge of the bezel. This way, I pulled the swirl out, and was able to use a reciprocating hammer. The piece is attached to the flex-shaft. When you press the pedal it makes the tip of the hammer tap at the metal with much more force and with more precision than can be done by hand. Before setting though- because of all my soldering I wanted to make sure my joints were strong, so I threw the piece in the pickle to get rid of any dirt or grime that might be holding the piece together, and not the solder. I fired the piece after. It's a little hard to tell with this picture, but because of the pickle the texture is a bit frosty as opposed to having a sheen underneath like when I burnished the above cuff, or leave the metal unburnished and it looks like leather.
This one, is what I'm really proud of. This was the piece I figured out the burnishing and then firing technique on. Simply cut out a flat sheet of copper, took forever to texturize using a giant ball burr. Because of the burring, the metal became very rough so I needed to burnish it smooth. After burnishing I fired it up. This is actually after it's second firing. First firing, colors were not as strong and I think they started to fade, so this afternoon I went and made the colors stronger. I'm not sure if it makes a difference, but with this piece after quenching, I wouldn't dry it before applying the flame again. It's seems it's also a matter of how close I hold the flame to the piece, starting off close and then pulling away. Certainly the size of the flame also matters. But yeh, totally stoke about this one.
And now, unrelated to jewelry, I know construction and quality are certainly not amazing from a professional point of view, but I sewed together an outfit. Material is cotton jersey:
Angle of the picture makes me look super freaking short, but the pants come to just past calf length.
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