A 3rd Post So Soon?!

In honor of Hanukkah, I decided to make myself a hanukkia. Besides, my other one is at home in NY. It's made out of copper.

Way back in August I pierced out the hamsa design, unsure of what to do with it. It was sitting in a drawer at my desk in school ever since. Light bulb went off when I was making the main body of the hanukkia, and wanted to have a pretty backdrop to it. Added some copper wire curly cues.

Also, corkscrewed some copper wire to make these cute feet.

This is the back, and the underside.
Happy Hanukkah everyone!!

It's FINISHED!!!!

The goal of this piece was to take a piece of jewelry from a magazine or photo and get inspired by it- copy it to a certain extent. This was what I found-

 

I opened the wings, splaying them out more. I also added on an entirely original section to the necklace. The marquis (almond) shaped stone is a labradorite which I received from our program director as a raffle prize from random stuff they brought back with them from the Tuscon, AZ gigantic gem show. Last February. I knew I saved the stone for a reason. The little round stone is a carnelian. I actually had it as a tiny free-form that had been tumbled (made smooth and shiny). Took it to the lapidary wheel and cut it into a cabochon. Anyway, follows the sob story. If you don't feel like reading the long mess, scroll down for some more pictures of the piece. Also, click on the photos if you want to see in better detail.

Rather than carve the piece out of wax (since we didn't have cylinders big enough to make a plaster cast from) I had to fabricate this entire thing. The necklace is made of 3 sections. The center "eye", the almond shape, and then the wings with side "arms". I had worked out the wings just fine (cutting them out, detailing them). The almond shaped piece originally had a bezel. That soldered just fine as well.

Then, I think my first mistake came next. In order to be able to pave the wings I'd need to have thicker metal to work with, so I had to solder on another layer of silver sheet to part of the wings. Rather than doing this first, I assembled the wings together with the almond bezel piece. The "elbow" joint above the almond shape also was soldered together. Then came soldering onto the wings the extra sheet. This will come into play later.

I put the wings aside for the moment to work on the center "eye". I created a domed base thick enough to handle a ring of czs to be set with a bead and bright cut. This piece also originally had a bezel setting meant for the carnelian. I pre-cut all the seats for the stones, but setting wouldn't happen until soldering the "eye" to the main piece.

This is when I believe mistake number two happened. I soldered the eye piece to the wings. The bond held on well enough at the time. But again, having done this became a problem later on.

I then paved the wings successfully, no issues. I went to set the czs into the eye piece. One joint broke, so I decided to just remove it entirely and work on it separately. To attach it back to the main piece, I decided to use the laser welder rather than solder with a regular torch flame. It's best to do so anyway because the czs can only take so much torch heat before they start to look frosty. I tried and failed, so I got my teacher to do it for me. The problem with the laser welder is sometimes the beam gets reflected and bounced around, which if it hits just right can explode or melt a cz. A cz did in fact get melted so I had to replace it.

While inspecting the piece I noticed that the bezel wire for the almond piece no longer appeared to be fully soldered to its base along one side. So, I tried to use the laser welder with some soldering wire to close the crack up. I ended up blowing a hole through the metal, which wasn't so bad because I could still salvage it and do something like a half bezel. I fixed the issue and then went to set the labradorite. I started to fold the bezel over and it separated from the base on the side I thought was fine, but clearly was not. I think what happened is when I had to solder on the extra sheet of metal for the wings, everything else got so heated up that the solder holding the bezel wire to the base "fused" into the metal of the base. That seam was no longer fully soldered.

I got pissed off so I just ripped the bezel wire off entirely. I started creating a new one when my teacher gave me an alternative method. He had me drill holes into the base to insert wire through. While hole drilling, I broke a seam holding the eye to the wing, so once again I removed it entirely. Unfortunately from the pressure of drilling not only did that happen, but the "elbow" joint above the almond shape broke as well. And, I could see that the almond shaped base had started to crack at the seam holding it to the main piece. Back to the laser welder to fix those issues. Next I inserted wire into the holes. The wire coming out the back side was balled up and then I pulled the wire from the front as tightly as possible. Used a ton of easy solder to fix the wire in place. I then had prongs. Hooray. I filed the prongs into little claws and set the labradorite successfully.

I then had to reattach the eye to the main body of the piece, using the laser welder once again. I believe I blew up another cz, which then had to be replaced. I went to go set the carnelian, and lo and behold, the bezel wire cracked at its seam and also started separating from its base. I believe this was a result from mistake number two. I should never have tried soldering the eye to the main piece with the torch. Ever. That extra heat, again, I think fused the solder into the base and no longer really held the bezel. I tore off the bezel and decided to go a similar route as the almond shape. Drill holes and insert wire for prongs. In two places where I drilled holes the czs popped out so I reset them. Then came the same process as before in fixing the wire into the holes. The third hole that didn't need a resetting of a cz did need it after soldering the wire into place. I know this part just happened today, but I think I remember that those two places I had needed to reset just from drilling the hole, again needed resetting after soldering the wire in. Filed the wires into claws.

Next was tackling the laser welder once again to attach the eye to the main body. I did so, and blew up another cz. AWESOME. Reset the cz. FINALLY set the carnelian. Attached the chain with some jump-rings to the wingtips. Jump-rings were also laser welded. Good God it's done.

I absolutely hated how long this took, how many fuckups I made. It's gotten to the point that there are scratches in the metal in certain places and things aren't perfectly polished, and I don't fucking care. I refuse to work on this thing for at least another year. Again, I'm going to see the flaws no matter what. BUT I tried it on, and it looks fucking awesome! Seeing it in the mirror and staring at it on myself for a minute already started to lift the weight of how hard this project was, and how I felt it shouldn't have been. I do like my little claw prongs in the end better than the original bezel set idea. I just wish it didn't have to come around in such an aggravating fashion. Meh.

Here are some more views of the piece:

Close-up of the wing. I used a diamond bur (like the one on the right) to texture the webbing in the wings. I ran the bur half the web in one direction and half the web in the other. When the light hits it, you get that split effect.

The carnelian "eye". Forgot to mention that I had cut out a small circle in the base. It's a little hard to tell here, but when placed on something dark, it looks like a pupil within the stone.

The labradorite. Check out the little claw prongs.

A close-up of the texture in the "arms". Used a ball bur for the effect.

Nearing the End

Since my last post over a month ago, I'm trying to remember what exactly I've been working on. I can only think of 3 things, which really, I should have made more in one month. Actually, I was sick for a week, so, 3 weeks really. So, maybe not so bad. There is a piece that I don't even remember when I started it that has been so involved. And I'm still not freaking finished with it. Believe me I will write allllllll about it when it's finished. There's also a matching ring which I just cast and has to get cleaned up. Oh, almost forgot I worked on a ring that I'll eventually make a mold of and be able to cast multiples of. That should be fun. God, mold making is seriously stinky (no joke).
Anyway two projects that I can show at least that were not actually school related:

This ring was for my mom's birthday. Simple rolling out of a solid ingot of sterling silver, pierced design, filing, and setting. I also cut the stone myself. It's called gem silica. This is what it looks like in the rough.

This is another fabricated piece (made upon request), piercing design. No stones on this one, just some texture. And it's a little hard to tell, but I antiqued the lining in the pierced out areas.

Super short post, but so it goes. This past week I've also gotten a little sidetracked by working on making a chanukiya for the holiday as the one I own is home in NY.

Continuation of Module 4

It feels kinda weird, I'm almost done with module 4. I really only have a few projects left to work on. Craziness. Anyway, the photos of the next few things are not the best- do not have photoshop anymore on my laptop to fix the lighting, etc. Long story. Ok, onward!

This ring was actually part of module 3. We had to learn how to make a rubber mold of a prototype in order to be able to wax inject, and create copies. This ring was my proto. I successfully made the mold, but have not pulled a successful wax from it. I need to create an extra channel into the rubber to allow the air someplace to go so the wax will flow through the entire mold. Someday.

These two are from an enameling workshop. I keep forgetting to bring home the two others that I made. Need to take pictures of them.

This one was pretty consuming, I don't really know why I did it, other than the end product is AWESOME!! Ahem, right. It's sterling silver. I cut out the dream-catcher design, and then cut out little pieces of copper and hammered the suckers into place. Then I soldered everything so they wouldn't fall out. This little plate was pretty thin, so I decided to bezel set it to give it some integrity. I antiqued the inside to get that black background seen through the silver.

A pair of earrings made to match the above cuff. Again, pierced silver with copper inlaid into the sections.

I got a little obsessed with the whole inlay thing. I made this copper pendent with silver inlay to go with the ring that was a prototype for mold making. Not really meant to be an exact match like with the cuff and earrings above.

So, it's funny the metal used for this piece is actually from waaaaaaaaaaay back when I took my first intro to jewelry making when I lived down in Silver Spring, MD. I had made a cool texture into copper but the sheet was too thin to really do anything about it, so the teacher suggested I solder it to a sheet of silver. Makes it thicker, and then won't get green finger. I never shaped it into anything, I just had this sheet of copper soldered to silver. I kept it not really knowing what to do with it. My most recent visit home to NY I looked at it wondering if I should throw it out. Brought it out to Cali with me instead. Part of my jewelry line in module 4 needed a ring, so, I got rid of the old texture, pierced out a design, bent it into a ring, gave it a new texture and fired it.

I have some familiar pieces next:

Finally made a necklace to go with this pendent. Brought the beads back from NY, and the bead loom on which I 'wove' the necklace.

Simple bead stringing job. Combination of wood, bone, and then the multicolored beads, I'm not really sure what they're made of. But they were recycled from an old necklace, something I believe belonged to my mom (thanks Ima!).

Decided this piece needed a refiring. Look at those awesome colors!!! The photo really doesn't do it justice, they are way cooler in real life.

Another copper piece that got the firing treatment. This guy was project #2 waaaaay back last January. Hard to believe it's that long ago. I re-burnished it; it had oxidized and got ugly. Then applied flame and awesome colors appeared.

So, last but not least, I decided to make a new mezuza for my new apartment. I kinda broke the other one from my last apartment, right after removing it, too. Anyway, it's not perfect in terms of the soldering assembly (which you can't see), but I'm really proud of the design. As long as it hangs on the door without falling off, it's all good:

Piece de Resistance

Could not wait to share this one with you guys. Very intricate mask; copper piercing and then inlaid silver into some of the cutouts. Used my firing technique to get all the awesome colors.

This is the back. The silver inlay are the yellowish shapes in the copper.

Free Reign in Module 4

So, I'm almost done with module 3 and have been working in module 4 instead. Because I can. And it turns out all those copper pieces I was just making for fun can count towards my jewelry line for module 4. I'm pretty proud of the next few pieces:

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.

More module 3

So, this post has only one project but I am soooo excited about it. Still working in wax. This was a wax carve-out. Basically carving an image/design into the wax. Back in my last semester in college my final senior "thesis" of sorts was a series of pen and ink drawings that were abstractions of a coiled snake. Here's just one of the 10 I had made:

To start I drew out a new design. We reduced the image down to the size I wanted for my pendent. After gluing the piece of paper onto a flat block of wax I poked holes into it deep into the wax in order to get an outline of all the details in the image. After peeling the paper off there was just a lot of carving to do. Since I wanted to increase the 3-dimensionality of the piece I carved it so that the pendent would be domed. Then I needed to hollow out the back. When I considered that design done I weighed the wax and did the conversion factor to see how much silver I would need- 43.5 grams of silver. IE a fuckton. So, more thinning out of the wax form was called for. When I finished, the calculation came out to 32.5 grams, so, MUCH better, but still a lot. For casting I had to add on a network of sprues for the metal to flow through the entire piece and attach it to a base:

Apparently I took the picture before I added the last 2 sprues (one on either side of the pink wax).
After all of that added wax- the piece came out to needing about 42 grams of silver. We did a process known as investing, which is creating a plaster mold of the wax. A steel cylinder is placed into the rubber base and looks like this. The plaster is then poured into the cylinder and allowed to cure. After, you pry the rubber base off and now have a hole for the wax to melt out of when placed into the oven. Next is the actual casting, which is awesome.
Had to saw off the entire sprue system. Normal polishing involves two steps: zam compound which is more of a burnisher and takes away metal, and step two is the rouge compound which really buffs a piece up and does not take off any metal. I took my piece and zammed it. Then, I went and got the silver-black which is a sulfur mixture that antiques silver. I got the entire piece nice and black, made sure to get into every crevice. Then I rouged up the piece and left certain areas in the piece antiqued. This makes the piece look even more defined. Gives it character:

I forgot to mention that I also carved out a little wax form for the bale to hold the pendent. Polished it up the same way as the pendent itself. Drilled a hole into each piece and connected them with a jump ring. The chain is from another necklace.
Here's the back of the piece all hollowed out. Had the texture in the wax and it came out just like I wanted. What's fun is having hollowed it out, it's not a smooth interior- it looks like the outside inversed:

So, there you have it!