I have also added some new bezel set stones like a terrific looking ocean jasper and a fossilized coral pendant and some new style sterling cuff bracelets. I hope you will stop by and see some of my new items.
I make and sell handcrafted precious metal and gemstone jewelry. I have wedding and engagement rings for all budgets and tastes. Follow my journey and join in the fun!
Mimi and her girls
Mimi and her girls
Monday, August 23, 2010
CZ Stacking Ring Give Away
I know I have been really delinquent in blogging lately but the daughter's wedding planning is as done as it can get, so I will try to be much better at keeping up at least weekly.
The good news for this week is I have been running an ad on a lovely blog called Bright Bold and Beautiful which has wonderful decorating ideas, gorgeous artwork and lots of fun give-aways by sponsors. Well this week I am a sponsor. I will be giving away one of my terrific looking white 5mm CZ stack rings. These rings are made to be sturdy enough to wear alone with a solid sterling band that will take lots of wear and tear, but look great stacked together with other lovely colored stones or even just some of the fun beaded bands or textured plain bands. I have a huge selection of gemstone rings but do take time to take a look at the blog and enter to win. Find it here http://www.brightboldbeautiful.blogspot.com/ from 8/23 through 8/29.
I have also added some new bezel set stones like a terrific looking ocean jasper and a fossilized coral pendant and some new style sterling cuff bracelets. I hope you will stop by and see some of my new items.
I have also added some new bezel set stones like a terrific looking ocean jasper and a fossilized coral pendant and some new style sterling cuff bracelets. I hope you will stop by and see some of my new items.
Monday, May 24, 2010
Rings and Things Part 3- Putting It All Together
Rings and Things - Part 3 - Putting it All Together
This is the final installment for rings and things, but certainly not all there is to making rings. I hope with this last blog you will have found a new appreciation for what goes into the whole process of ring making. So much thought and small details make all the difference. For those who are truly interested in making rings, I would recommend purchasing "Creative Stonesetting" by Cogswell who really goes into every minute deatil of ring creation and all the fine finishing that can really make the difference in the beauty of the final product.
Choose metal for your band. Lets keep it simple here and use 18 gauge sheet. Using a ring sizing chart- available at www.contenti.com, pick your ring size and use a straigt edge T square use a sharpie to mark off the length and width you want for the band. Use the appropriate saw blade to saw out this length. Remember, the wider the band, the bigger it needs to be to fit- usually you have to go up about a half size. Use a file to smooth any burs or rough edges and make sure it is perfectly flat and squared up. Now take this band and lay it over your ring mandrel a size or so up from where you want it to finish. This is done because metal is very springy and you need to get the curve started and allow for the metal to be forged slowly into shape. Use a rawhide hammer to start tapping it around the mandrel to shape into a circle. (There are lots of other mandrel shapes, because lets face it, fingers aren't really round, but for lack of a book chapter this will give you the idea). Rawhide should not leave marks and also not spread the metal wider or longer as much as a metal hammer. After the metal is rounded, use fingers or plastic coated pliers to bring the ends past each other back and forth until the two ends meet and touch perfectly flat. If they don't, file and adjust, this will be where you solder the ring together and it must be perfect. Check again for size. Now, use those plastic pliers to flatten the area a bit so your solder will stay put- you can round it on the mandrel again after soldering. I won't go through the soldering process again, but I use hard solder again. After soldering and pickling, clean with a brass brush and file and or sand until there is absolutely no sign of the seam where you soldered inside or out. Leave the area flattered a little where the seam is, this is where you will solder on your bezel. After you attach the bezel you can put the ring on your mandreal and round it out before setting the stone and polishing. Also, if the ring size is a bit off, you can forge with a metal hammer to enlarge and stretch it a bit. Important- you must forge slowly and take the ring off and turn it around in between hammering or one side will get bigger than the other- you want it round on both sides.
Prepare your bezel and band with flux. Everyone does this last part a little different, but I lay my bezel face down on a soldering pad, then place the band on top to see if it will stand by itself. No matter what shape your bezel is, you want to be sure the band is centered font back and also looking down from the top. If this is a large bezel you can use a sharpie to make marks on the bezel back to see where the band goes again after you remove to add solder. Now, remove the band, warm bothe the band and the bezel to dry the flux to a glassy stage. Add easy solder- not too much- you don't want to have to do a lot of sanding and filing excess solder on your nice band and bezel. Place the warmed band back on the bezel. I use my third hand tweezers at this point. I loosen the wing nuts so the tweezers are just a little floppy and lay the tip on the band to hold it still. Remember, solder melts when the metal is hot and you don't want the band to move when the solder flows and have it end up all cockeyed. Since the bezel is much lighter weight than the band and solder flows toward the heat, I start with the torch on the band on either side of the bezel. Keeping the torch moving, get down as close as possible and safe (did I tell you to wear protective eye wear any time you are working with metal or a torch? If not, my bad, never work without glasses or goggles). After the solder flows, take the torch away immediately and allow the ring to cool before quenching and pickling. Clean up is the same as for all the other steps.
Now you are ready to put the stone in the bezel setting!!! Put your ring in a ring clamp and screw it in snug. I brace mt ring clamp in a bench pin sawed out in the shape of the clamp. Now we have new tools to get out. I use tweezers to pick up my stone and center it over the bezel. Remember, this should fit perfectly so it's not going to just drop in there- if it does, the bezel is too big and the stone will make a little noise as it moves around inside after you have set it.
Use your thumb or sometimes I use a pencil eraser to push the stone down into the setting. Many times you will even hear a little click as it sets itself in place. Check all around to make sure the stone is level and seated properly, if not, push gently buy firmly on the uneven area until seated. Next step, get out a bezel pusher, this tool has a square piece of metal with a flat face set in a round wooden handle. The face is smooth and will be used to push the bezel into the sides of the stone to hold it firmly in place. With an oval for example, pretending it's a clock face, start at 12 o'clock and push, then go to 6 o'clock, then 3 and 9. After this keep going around until all the areas have been pushed tight against the stone. Remember, the bezel should fit perfectly so you don't have much of anything to go up over the top of the stone to hide it. If you have any marks from the pusher in your bezel or any small areas that wrinkled, now get out the bezel burnisher. This is a curved highly polished almost knife used to smooth out those wrinkles and at the same time polish the bezel- to see what one loks like click on this link:
http://www.riogrande.com/MemberArea/ProductPage.aspx?assetname=113017&page=GRID&free_text
1271677891290=burnisher
You can us a little soapy water, a thin coating of oil or even saliva to assure it burnisher moves smoothly around the bezel- keep the tip up and away from the ring so you don't gouge the bezel. Go around until everything is smooth on the sides and when looking down at the top of the ring you don't see a single gap anywhere. This may sound very simple, but I have spend lots of time getting this to look perfect. Bezels can have plain, serrated or scalloped tops which all bring their own challenges. If the top of the bezel is plain, I also use a bezel smoother which looks like the pusher except it have a tiny notch in it the you can scoot all around the very top of the bezel to take out any additional marks and make it very shiny.
Last step- polish! This could and is a whole book chapter, but suffice it to say, the less scratches and marks you leave while fabicating, the less work you have now. Any scratches have to be sanded out with decreasing grit paper, I usually start with 320 and work down 400, 600, 800 I have even gone down to 8000 to get a mirror shine. I wrap the sandpaper in a round mandrel to get the inside and have used all sorts of gadgets to go around the top. When all scratches are removed I use 3M radial discs in my Dremel drill to pre polish then finish with ones that contain polishing rouge. Remember this is all done while the ring is in the ring clamp so you have to keep loosening and moving it to get all the little tiny crevices.
You should now have a beautiful ring to put on your finger and display for all to admire.
Now when you look at the gorgeous hand crafted rings for sale you hopefully have an appreciation of what went into creating that little tiny shiny.
I hope you will also have gained enough knowledge to be discerning when choosing a ring for purchase. There is nothing worse than buying something and when you receive it, it just doesn't measure up to the price you paid. Look for sellers that take pictures from different angles to show all sides of the ring and include the stone and bezel (including from the top), Do zoom in if it's available, the camera doesn't lie. Many of use who make jewelry take digital macro pix of our items and check them out for flaws not visible even with magnifying glasses before we call the item finished and ready for sale. If there is something you can't see don't hesitate to contact the seller and ask for an extra picture- we all have them, but don't necessarily put them up for viewing if they aren't our best.
I hope you've enjoyed this series of blogs. If you like, please leave comments and let me know what else you may find interesting as a topic in jewelry making. I'm sure not an expert by any means, but sometimes I think the experts forget what it's like to be a beginner and they leave out all those little steps and processes that they now do automatically.
This is the final installment for rings and things, but certainly not all there is to making rings. I hope with this last blog you will have found a new appreciation for what goes into the whole process of ring making. So much thought and small details make all the difference. For those who are truly interested in making rings, I would recommend purchasing "Creative Stonesetting" by Cogswell who really goes into every minute deatil of ring creation and all the fine finishing that can really make the difference in the beauty of the final product.
Choose metal for your band. Lets keep it simple here and use 18 gauge sheet. Using a ring sizing chart- available at www.contenti.com, pick your ring size and use a straigt edge T square use a sharpie to mark off the length and width you want for the band. Use the appropriate saw blade to saw out this length. Remember, the wider the band, the bigger it needs to be to fit- usually you have to go up about a half size. Use a file to smooth any burs or rough edges and make sure it is perfectly flat and squared up. Now take this band and lay it over your ring mandrel a size or so up from where you want it to finish. This is done because metal is very springy and you need to get the curve started and allow for the metal to be forged slowly into shape. Use a rawhide hammer to start tapping it around the mandrel to shape into a circle. (There are lots of other mandrel shapes, because lets face it, fingers aren't really round, but for lack of a book chapter this will give you the idea). Rawhide should not leave marks and also not spread the metal wider or longer as much as a metal hammer. After the metal is rounded, use fingers or plastic coated pliers to bring the ends past each other back and forth until the two ends meet and touch perfectly flat. If they don't, file and adjust, this will be where you solder the ring together and it must be perfect. Check again for size. Now, use those plastic pliers to flatten the area a bit so your solder will stay put- you can round it on the mandrel again after soldering. I won't go through the soldering process again, but I use hard solder again. After soldering and pickling, clean with a brass brush and file and or sand until there is absolutely no sign of the seam where you soldered inside or out. Leave the area flattered a little where the seam is, this is where you will solder on your bezel. After you attach the bezel you can put the ring on your mandreal and round it out before setting the stone and polishing. Also, if the ring size is a bit off, you can forge with a metal hammer to enlarge and stretch it a bit. Important- you must forge slowly and take the ring off and turn it around in between hammering or one side will get bigger than the other- you want it round on both sides.
Prepare your bezel and band with flux. Everyone does this last part a little different, but I lay my bezel face down on a soldering pad, then place the band on top to see if it will stand by itself. No matter what shape your bezel is, you want to be sure the band is centered font back and also looking down from the top. If this is a large bezel you can use a sharpie to make marks on the bezel back to see where the band goes again after you remove to add solder. Now, remove the band, warm bothe the band and the bezel to dry the flux to a glassy stage. Add easy solder- not too much- you don't want to have to do a lot of sanding and filing excess solder on your nice band and bezel. Place the warmed band back on the bezel. I use my third hand tweezers at this point. I loosen the wing nuts so the tweezers are just a little floppy and lay the tip on the band to hold it still. Remember, solder melts when the metal is hot and you don't want the band to move when the solder flows and have it end up all cockeyed. Since the bezel is much lighter weight than the band and solder flows toward the heat, I start with the torch on the band on either side of the bezel. Keeping the torch moving, get down as close as possible and safe (did I tell you to wear protective eye wear any time you are working with metal or a torch? If not, my bad, never work without glasses or goggles). After the solder flows, take the torch away immediately and allow the ring to cool before quenching and pickling. Clean up is the same as for all the other steps.
Now you are ready to put the stone in the bezel setting!!! Put your ring in a ring clamp and screw it in snug. I brace mt ring clamp in a bench pin sawed out in the shape of the clamp. Now we have new tools to get out. I use tweezers to pick up my stone and center it over the bezel. Remember, this should fit perfectly so it's not going to just drop in there- if it does, the bezel is too big and the stone will make a little noise as it moves around inside after you have set it.
Use your thumb or sometimes I use a pencil eraser to push the stone down into the setting. Many times you will even hear a little click as it sets itself in place. Check all around to make sure the stone is level and seated properly, if not, push gently buy firmly on the uneven area until seated. Next step, get out a bezel pusher, this tool has a square piece of metal with a flat face set in a round wooden handle. The face is smooth and will be used to push the bezel into the sides of the stone to hold it firmly in place. With an oval for example, pretending it's a clock face, start at 12 o'clock and push, then go to 6 o'clock, then 3 and 9. After this keep going around until all the areas have been pushed tight against the stone. Remember, the bezel should fit perfectly so you don't have much of anything to go up over the top of the stone to hide it. If you have any marks from the pusher in your bezel or any small areas that wrinkled, now get out the bezel burnisher. This is a curved highly polished almost knife used to smooth out those wrinkles and at the same time polish the bezel- to see what one loks like click on this link:
http://www.riogrande.com/MemberArea/ProductPage.aspx?assetname=113017&page=GRID&free_text
1271677891290=burnisher
You can us a little soapy water, a thin coating of oil or even saliva to assure it burnisher moves smoothly around the bezel- keep the tip up and away from the ring so you don't gouge the bezel. Go around until everything is smooth on the sides and when looking down at the top of the ring you don't see a single gap anywhere. This may sound very simple, but I have spend lots of time getting this to look perfect. Bezels can have plain, serrated or scalloped tops which all bring their own challenges. If the top of the bezel is plain, I also use a bezel smoother which looks like the pusher except it have a tiny notch in it the you can scoot all around the very top of the bezel to take out any additional marks and make it very shiny.
Last step- polish! This could and is a whole book chapter, but suffice it to say, the less scratches and marks you leave while fabicating, the less work you have now. Any scratches have to be sanded out with decreasing grit paper, I usually start with 320 and work down 400, 600, 800 I have even gone down to 8000 to get a mirror shine. I wrap the sandpaper in a round mandrel to get the inside and have used all sorts of gadgets to go around the top. When all scratches are removed I use 3M radial discs in my Dremel drill to pre polish then finish with ones that contain polishing rouge. Remember this is all done while the ring is in the ring clamp so you have to keep loosening and moving it to get all the little tiny crevices.
You should now have a beautiful ring to put on your finger and display for all to admire.
Now when you look at the gorgeous hand crafted rings for sale you hopefully have an appreciation of what went into creating that little tiny shiny.
I hope you will also have gained enough knowledge to be discerning when choosing a ring for purchase. There is nothing worse than buying something and when you receive it, it just doesn't measure up to the price you paid. Look for sellers that take pictures from different angles to show all sides of the ring and include the stone and bezel (including from the top), Do zoom in if it's available, the camera doesn't lie. Many of use who make jewelry take digital macro pix of our items and check them out for flaws not visible even with magnifying glasses before we call the item finished and ready for sale. If there is something you can't see don't hesitate to contact the seller and ask for an extra picture- we all have them, but don't necessarily put them up for viewing if they aren't our best.
I hope you've enjoyed this series of blogs. If you like, please leave comments and let me know what else you may find interesting as a topic in jewelry making. I'm sure not an expert by any means, but sometimes I think the experts forget what it's like to be a beginner and they leave out all those little steps and processes that they now do automatically.
Saturday, April 17, 2010
Rings and Things- Part 2 - Fabrication
Wow- I can't believe I promised a second installment and it took this long to get around to it. Planning to go on vacation for 2 weeks out of the country, granddaughter's third birthday party and the full time job really take up way more time than I ever think they will.
Chrysoprase Ring
http://www.artfire.com/modules.php?name=Shop&op=listing&product_id=1224009
Now- let's talk about making the ring. We got through making the bezel for the stone and soldered it together and cleaned it up a little. Now we have to put in on a backplate so the stone has something to sit on. We are talking basic here, no fancy drilled tube settings, step bezels with the back open or prong settings which are totally separate blogs!
First, check to see if the bezel still fits around the stone. The bezel wil not be a perfect round shape (or whatever shape the stone is) after you've moved the two cut ends all around to get them to stay together to solder. If round, I usually use a small mandrel- like a jump ring mandrel, to round out the bezel a little and then fit it over the stone. If it's too small (and too small is always better than too big) I tap it a little with a hammer to stretch the bezel a little. Remember, every time you touch hammer to metal it moves, tap lightly, check size often. If it gets too big you have to start over from scratch!
Choose a piece of sheet silver that will be sturdy enough to solder on your bezel, but not over heavy and thick unless you have a huge stone. I tend to like 24 gauge. Place the bezel on the sheet and mark off around the bezel leaving enought space in case the bezel moves during the soldering process. Another thought at this step is do you want to eventually cut away all the excess silver after soldering the bezel, or do you want some extra to possibly decorate with a pattern wire or maybe even a stamped design. For this ring- I am going to go with solder it on, and cut away the excess. Use good metal shears to cut out your sheet, then flatten with a rawhide mallet. You can't solder anything unless it is touching perfectly flush. Set the bezel on top of the sheet and use a good file to take off any rough edges or uneven spots so it sits perfectly flat. Next step is to get out the solder pad or mesh on top of a tripod, the torch, flux, and now medium solder. Unless your very good at soldering, work with the solder that melts before the one you used to solder the bezel. Flux everything really well and let it dry a little or use the torch to dry any water in the flux. I usually air dry, and cut my solder into small pieces while it's drying. Using fine tweezers, place the solder chips inside the bezel as close to the inside edge as possible, try to space them evenly remembering as you heat the backplate, solder flows toward the heat and you don't want any gaps or holes when you're done- resoldering to fill a hole is a real pain. Light the torch and gently heat the backplate until the flux turns a bit dry- you may have to use a solder pick to carefully keep your little solder chips from moving away from where you put them. At this stage you are now ready to solder if all the chips are still in place- if not try to get them close to the edge again. At this point, I will usually get out my "third hand" gadget and lay the tweezers on top of the bexel to try to keep it in place when the solder melts. Sometimes, just the flow of solder cause the very ligh weight bezel to flow right along with the solder and off the backplate- no that's a real problem! Also the tweezers act like a heat sink and tend to absorb any heat that might get on the thin bezel wire and cause it to melt! Now, the torch can be turned up a bit, continue heating the backplate and not the bezel, remember, it is fine silver and will melt if it gets too hot. Solder melts because the metal is hot, you don't need to touch it with the torch. Keep the torch moving all around the bezel without touching it. When the flux gets clear and glassy looking the solder is about to flow. As soon as you see the solder start to melt, move the torch around the bezel and you will see it fill in under the bezel and make a nice seam. As soon as it does that- remove the heat. Let this newly fabricated piece cool a little, if you quench it in water too soon you can cause metal to fracture. Not a fracture you'll always see, but may find later as you continue the ring making process. Quench in water, then use your copper tongs and put this in an acid pickle bath to remove any flux and firescale in case a spot got too hot. Remove from pickle with copper tongs, rinse with water and use a brass brush to clean up every bit of residue you see. Any leftover residue can cause the ring to tarnish later.
Next step is to get this top piece ready to be soldered onto a ring band (that will be Part 3). Take your trusty metal shears and cut off the excess silver as close to the solder seam as possible without cutting into it. Now you need really good files. I use Swiss files and an American flat file. I start with the American flat file and get off as much of the excess silver as possible, then switch to a #0 Swiss file going around and around until it looks very smooth. I finish up with a #2 Swiss file to finish- when I look down at the bezel I should not see any rough edges or little excess piece of silver sticking out. By now you should have a very nice piece to put your stone in when it's been soldered to the band.
But first, check again to make sure the stone fits inside the bezel on the backplate. If you have extra solder inside that you missed in cleanup, it may be too tight. If you see any excess solder, sand or file it out. In a tiny space you may have to get creative as to what you use to wrap sandpaper around to get into those little tiny bezels. Asumming it is clean, I use a piece of dental floss over the bezel and put my stone in on top of the floss. You have to be able to get the stone out again since almost no stone can tolerate the heat it will take to solder the bezel to the band. Another consideration after you have determined the fit is still good- do you open up the back of the bezel or leave it solid? If you open it up then when you clean the ring any liquid that gets inside between the stone and bezel can get out the back. If the ring needs repaired, you can get the stone out and work on the ring without damage to the stone. If it's a clear stone, even though 90% of light enters through the top of the stone, opening the back sometimes allows even more light through to show the beauty of the stone. Leaving it solid makes it a bit sturdier if it's a smaller stone, but does allow for accumulation of any dust and dirt or liquids that may cause tarnish- how many of us take rings off every time we wash our hands? I vote to open the back.
Draw a circle or design inside the bezel with a sharpie allowing a small amount of the backplate as a shelf for the stone to sit on. Using a metal center punch, find a spot just inside the sharipe line and tap a small starter dent in the silver bckplate. Take a small drill bit and attach it to you dremel or flexshaft and drill a tiny hole where that dent is. Now thread a small #4 saw blade throught that hole. One end of the blade should already be attached to the saw frame before you thread it through the hole, then attach the blade to the other end of the saw frame and tighten it down. Then adjust the top for length until you hear a nice ping sound in the blade. Go ahead and saw out the circle you drew being careful to stay inside your line. Always better to saw out too little than too much, you can always use small needle files to get more out later. When you have finished sawing, undo one end of the blade to get the saw blade out of the little piece you have. Get out the needle files and smooth out the circle and rough edges until everything is smooth and even and shiny. Now is also a good time to file away any seam left on the bezel from soldering it together. The seam should never show around the stone, but I don't like to file that too soon since before it is on the backplate I could make the metal too thin or stretch it out and then the bezel could melt, or just not fit. When filing the bezel, be very careful not to push and pull the upright part, the bezel should stay vertical at all times otherwise it could wrinkle when trying to close it over the stone.
Next blog, we make the band, solder the bezel to the band and set the stone. Bet you never knew there was this much to do just so you could wear that great looking ring you found shopping for hand crafted jewelry.
Chrysoprase Ring
http://www.artfire.com/modules.php?name=Shop&op=listing&product_id=1224009
Now- let's talk about making the ring. We got through making the bezel for the stone and soldered it together and cleaned it up a little. Now we have to put in on a backplate so the stone has something to sit on. We are talking basic here, no fancy drilled tube settings, step bezels with the back open or prong settings which are totally separate blogs!
First, check to see if the bezel still fits around the stone. The bezel wil not be a perfect round shape (or whatever shape the stone is) after you've moved the two cut ends all around to get them to stay together to solder. If round, I usually use a small mandrel- like a jump ring mandrel, to round out the bezel a little and then fit it over the stone. If it's too small (and too small is always better than too big) I tap it a little with a hammer to stretch the bezel a little. Remember, every time you touch hammer to metal it moves, tap lightly, check size often. If it gets too big you have to start over from scratch!
Choose a piece of sheet silver that will be sturdy enough to solder on your bezel, but not over heavy and thick unless you have a huge stone. I tend to like 24 gauge. Place the bezel on the sheet and mark off around the bezel leaving enought space in case the bezel moves during the soldering process. Another thought at this step is do you want to eventually cut away all the excess silver after soldering the bezel, or do you want some extra to possibly decorate with a pattern wire or maybe even a stamped design. For this ring- I am going to go with solder it on, and cut away the excess. Use good metal shears to cut out your sheet, then flatten with a rawhide mallet. You can't solder anything unless it is touching perfectly flush. Set the bezel on top of the sheet and use a good file to take off any rough edges or uneven spots so it sits perfectly flat. Next step is to get out the solder pad or mesh on top of a tripod, the torch, flux, and now medium solder. Unless your very good at soldering, work with the solder that melts before the one you used to solder the bezel. Flux everything really well and let it dry a little or use the torch to dry any water in the flux. I usually air dry, and cut my solder into small pieces while it's drying. Using fine tweezers, place the solder chips inside the bezel as close to the inside edge as possible, try to space them evenly remembering as you heat the backplate, solder flows toward the heat and you don't want any gaps or holes when you're done- resoldering to fill a hole is a real pain. Light the torch and gently heat the backplate until the flux turns a bit dry- you may have to use a solder pick to carefully keep your little solder chips from moving away from where you put them. At this stage you are now ready to solder if all the chips are still in place- if not try to get them close to the edge again. At this point, I will usually get out my "third hand" gadget and lay the tweezers on top of the bexel to try to keep it in place when the solder melts. Sometimes, just the flow of solder cause the very ligh weight bezel to flow right along with the solder and off the backplate- no that's a real problem! Also the tweezers act like a heat sink and tend to absorb any heat that might get on the thin bezel wire and cause it to melt! Now, the torch can be turned up a bit, continue heating the backplate and not the bezel, remember, it is fine silver and will melt if it gets too hot. Solder melts because the metal is hot, you don't need to touch it with the torch. Keep the torch moving all around the bezel without touching it. When the flux gets clear and glassy looking the solder is about to flow. As soon as you see the solder start to melt, move the torch around the bezel and you will see it fill in under the bezel and make a nice seam. As soon as it does that- remove the heat. Let this newly fabricated piece cool a little, if you quench it in water too soon you can cause metal to fracture. Not a fracture you'll always see, but may find later as you continue the ring making process. Quench in water, then use your copper tongs and put this in an acid pickle bath to remove any flux and firescale in case a spot got too hot. Remove from pickle with copper tongs, rinse with water and use a brass brush to clean up every bit of residue you see. Any leftover residue can cause the ring to tarnish later.
Next step is to get this top piece ready to be soldered onto a ring band (that will be Part 3). Take your trusty metal shears and cut off the excess silver as close to the solder seam as possible without cutting into it. Now you need really good files. I use Swiss files and an American flat file. I start with the American flat file and get off as much of the excess silver as possible, then switch to a #0 Swiss file going around and around until it looks very smooth. I finish up with a #2 Swiss file to finish- when I look down at the bezel I should not see any rough edges or little excess piece of silver sticking out. By now you should have a very nice piece to put your stone in when it's been soldered to the band.
But first, check again to make sure the stone fits inside the bezel on the backplate. If you have extra solder inside that you missed in cleanup, it may be too tight. If you see any excess solder, sand or file it out. In a tiny space you may have to get creative as to what you use to wrap sandpaper around to get into those little tiny bezels. Asumming it is clean, I use a piece of dental floss over the bezel and put my stone in on top of the floss. You have to be able to get the stone out again since almost no stone can tolerate the heat it will take to solder the bezel to the band. Another consideration after you have determined the fit is still good- do you open up the back of the bezel or leave it solid? If you open it up then when you clean the ring any liquid that gets inside between the stone and bezel can get out the back. If the ring needs repaired, you can get the stone out and work on the ring without damage to the stone. If it's a clear stone, even though 90% of light enters through the top of the stone, opening the back sometimes allows even more light through to show the beauty of the stone. Leaving it solid makes it a bit sturdier if it's a smaller stone, but does allow for accumulation of any dust and dirt or liquids that may cause tarnish- how many of us take rings off every time we wash our hands? I vote to open the back.
Draw a circle or design inside the bezel with a sharpie allowing a small amount of the backplate as a shelf for the stone to sit on. Using a metal center punch, find a spot just inside the sharipe line and tap a small starter dent in the silver bckplate. Take a small drill bit and attach it to you dremel or flexshaft and drill a tiny hole where that dent is. Now thread a small #4 saw blade throught that hole. One end of the blade should already be attached to the saw frame before you thread it through the hole, then attach the blade to the other end of the saw frame and tighten it down. Then adjust the top for length until you hear a nice ping sound in the blade. Go ahead and saw out the circle you drew being careful to stay inside your line. Always better to saw out too little than too much, you can always use small needle files to get more out later. When you have finished sawing, undo one end of the blade to get the saw blade out of the little piece you have. Get out the needle files and smooth out the circle and rough edges until everything is smooth and even and shiny. Now is also a good time to file away any seam left on the bezel from soldering it together. The seam should never show around the stone, but I don't like to file that too soon since before it is on the backplate I could make the metal too thin or stretch it out and then the bezel could melt, or just not fit. When filing the bezel, be very careful not to push and pull the upright part, the bezel should stay vertical at all times otherwise it could wrinkle when trying to close it over the stone.
Next blog, we make the band, solder the bezel to the band and set the stone. Bet you never knew there was this much to do just so you could wear that great looking ring you found shopping for hand crafted jewelry.
Monday, April 12, 2010
Rings and Things - Part 1- The Design
I have to get better about tending to my blog. It's really fun, but I just never seem to know what to say when I sit down to write and all the things I wanted to say just seem to have flown out of my head when I do sit down. Today I decided I will definitely post and do better for the rest of this year!
Being an aspiring metalsmith, it took me a while to get to the point I would attempt a ring. They are so darn small! They are so complicated. I wanted to share the process just so ring lovers everywhere would know how much goes into creating these little beauties.
Rings- geesh, every woman I know has at least one, some have a collection that would compete against the crown jewels. Me, I love rings, I like all the varied shapes, designs, colored stones and even just designs in metal. I haven't gotten to the point of wearing them on multiple fingers, but I do wear one or more (stacked of course) on each hand. So, a little blog about something as simple as a ring- more about the process of creating this small but eye catching little piece of jewelry that can have meaning of friendship, marriage or just says we love to have fun. I hope those who love and purchase rings will appreciate just how much goes into the process before you put that little ring on your finger!
First comes the idea- The Design as it were- do you want a simple band or fancy, a stone - large or small, faceted or not, gem or natural cabachon, all metal- gold, silver copper or mixed metals. Do you see where I'm going with this? Creating a ring is no different than any other piece of jewelry- so many choices. Now comes the hard part- is this ring going to be a unique one of a kind piece or is it going to be something you want to offer your customers on an ongoing basis so they can have more than one, different colors or give as a gift to a friend that admired theirs. I love the whole idea of stacking rings, you can change your selections to match your outfits, have plain metals mixed in and wear as many as you want. I have started making a bunch of them and can't wait to offer them to my customers. Stacking rings are just so much fun! How can you not love these?
http://www.flickr.com/photos/allwiredupjewelrydesigns/4448341035/
These have to be customized to anyone who orders them, you can't just make one size, so that involves having a lot of stock on hand- silver, gemstones bezel cups or bezel wire and silver sheet and all those grand mealsmith materials like torch, solder, hammers, bezel pusher, burnish- oh, the list goes on and on.
Now, back to the making of the ring. Assuming you only want to do one- or you have only one terrific stone nd you want to show it off- what next? First, you have to measure the stone or know it's calibrated size if it's a standard shape. For a non- standard shape, measuring the outside and then the height is of the utmost importance. Next you find the bezel wire you want- plain, serrated, scalloped, gallery wire- and it has to be just the right height to hold the ring in place without covering it up too much. Now the fun part, you measure around the ring again with the bezel wire and cut- the old adage measure twice, cut once- is really important here, otherwise you have a lot of wasted silver bezel wire laying about. Now you carefully solder that together and clean it up so no seam is visible, check that it still fits around your stone. Not fitting is another blog entry!
Now, find a piece of silver sheet for the back of the ring. You have to solder the finished bezel to that. Cutting a piece larger than your shaped bezel is important because the little devil bezel might move when you solder the bezel to the silver sheet. Another question- are you going to make the back larger than the stone and add embellishments or are you going to cut and file it off so it's a perfect fit with no material showing? Are you going to leave the back solid or will you saw out a piece of the back to let a little light shine through the stone- see this is harder than you thought! Remeber, you have to use a different solder than you did on the bezel when you attach it, otherwise the first solder join will melt apart. Solder comes in hard, medium and easy and each melts at a different temperature. Hardtakes the most heat, easy the least. I always start with hard and work my way down to easy if I am only doing a basic ring. Again, another blog post if your doing something complicated where you need to protect a second stones set next to a bigger one or adding a wire design or other embellishments.
I will stop here so you can just think about the design process. Keep in mind, we haven't even made the band yet or checked to see if the stone will still fit into the bezel soldered on to the backplate. Heck- I haven't even gone through soldering on the backplate yet! If it doesn't fit, you have to usually start all over.
Next time you are browsing through the rings category- just look at the top- the part everyone sees and know that lots of work went into just that part that you want everyone to admire when you wear the ring.
I promise to blog again tomorrow with Part 2 - Making the band and sizing. Part 3 will be all about setting the stone and finishing to make it pretty and shiny!
I hope you've enjoyed this first entry and come back to read more.
Have a wonderful day everyone.
Posted in General by ppennee on April 12, 2010 at 3:47am
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BLOG CATEGORIES
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Rings and Things - Part 1, Design
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Work in Progress, Sawing
Being an aspiring metalsmith, it took me a while to get to the point I would attempt a ring. They are so darn small! They are so complicated. I wanted to share the process just so ring lovers everywhere would know how much goes into creating these little beauties.
Rings- geesh, every woman I know has at least one, some have a collection that would compete against the crown jewels. Me, I love rings, I like all the varied shapes, designs, colored stones and even just designs in metal. I haven't gotten to the point of wearing them on multiple fingers, but I do wear one or more (stacked of course) on each hand. So, a little blog about something as simple as a ring- more about the process of creating this small but eye catching little piece of jewelry that can have meaning of friendship, marriage or just says we love to have fun. I hope those who love and purchase rings will appreciate just how much goes into the process before you put that little ring on your finger!
First comes the idea- The Design as it were- do you want a simple band or fancy, a stone - large or small, faceted or not, gem or natural cabachon, all metal- gold, silver copper or mixed metals. Do you see where I'm going with this? Creating a ring is no different than any other piece of jewelry- so many choices. Now comes the hard part- is this ring going to be a unique one of a kind piece or is it going to be something you want to offer your customers on an ongoing basis so they can have more than one, different colors or give as a gift to a friend that admired theirs. I love the whole idea of stacking rings, you can change your selections to match your outfits, have plain metals mixed in and wear as many as you want. I have started making a bunch of them and can't wait to offer them to my customers. Stacking rings are just so much fun! How can you not love these?
http://www.flickr.com/photos/allwiredupjewelrydesigns/4448341035/
These have to be customized to anyone who orders them, you can't just make one size, so that involves having a lot of stock on hand- silver, gemstones bezel cups or bezel wire and silver sheet and all those grand mealsmith materials like torch, solder, hammers, bezel pusher, burnish- oh, the list goes on and on.
Now, find a piece of silver sheet for the back of the ring. You have to solder the finished bezel to that. Cutting a piece larger than your shaped bezel is important because the little devil bezel might move when you solder the bezel to the silver sheet. Another question- are you going to make the back larger than the stone and add embellishments or are you going to cut and file it off so it's a perfect fit with no material showing? Are you going to leave the back solid or will you saw out a piece of the back to let a little light shine through the stone- see this is harder than you thought! Remeber, you have to use a different solder than you did on the bezel when you attach it, otherwise the first solder join will melt apart. Solder comes in hard, medium and easy and each melts at a different temperature. Hardtakes the most heat, easy the least. I always start with hard and work my way down to easy if I am only doing a basic ring. Again, another blog post if your doing something complicated where you need to protect a second stones set next to a bigger one or adding a wire design or other embellishments.
I will stop here so you can just think about the design process. Keep in mind, we haven't even made the band yet or checked to see if the stone will still fit into the bezel soldered on to the backplate. Heck- I haven't even gone through soldering on the backplate yet! If it doesn't fit, you have to usually start all over.
Next time you are browsing through the rings category- just look at the top- the part everyone sees and know that lots of work went into just that part that you want everyone to admire when you wear the ring.
I promise to blog again tomorrow with Part 2 - Making the band and sizing. Part 3 will be all about setting the stone and finishing to make it pretty and shiny!
I hope you've enjoyed this first entry and come back to read more.
Have a wonderful day everyone.
Posted in General by ppennee on April 12, 2010 at 3:47am
Previous
Comments (0)
Products From ppennee's Studio
stamped silve...
ppennee US $42.50
spin ring-mad...
ppennee US $45.00
smokey topaz ...
ppennee US $40.00
chrysoprase s...
ppennee US $35.00
labradorite a...
ppennee US $40.00
silver bangle...
ppennee US $40.00 Comments
Add comment
Text (Required)
BLOG CATEGORIES
General
New Reduced Price Items
Holiday Specials
RECENTLY POSTED
Rings and Things - Part 1, Design
The Step Bezel Nightmare
March Madness Sale
Back from a Facebook Virus
Work in Progress, Sawing
Sunday, March 21, 2010
Spring is Sprung - Aspiring Metalsmith's Team Challenge
I just had to write a little piece on the aspiring metalsmiths spring challenge before the final voting is done tonight. Our groups first challenge was rings. I had never made a ring before, but stepped up to the plate and turned one out. Needless to say, I barely got an honorable mention with my quite amateuish entry, but I learned a lot. Winner of the challenge got to pick the next challenge. She throws out the age old ditty-" Spring is sprung, the grass is riz" and says to us, we will vote based on best interpretation AND thinking out of the "boxness". You gotta love anyone who can make up a word like that and keep a straight face. You can check out the entries here at http://aspiringmetalsmiths.blogspot.com/. You will notice if you look at all the entries, one in particular- the current leader and most likely winner- is totally out of the box. An egg, in the fashion of the great Fabrege with a totally cool scene inside complete with sky inside the top, grass in the bottom and a bow on top. This baby is outrageous! I must say, I now realize I don't think out of the box at all when it comes to metalsmithing- at least not yet. But Asa, from asap designs, http://www.etsy.com/shop/asapdesigns, certainly got out of the box and showed us all what's possible.
I guess I should show my entry, which I originally thought was a little out of the box. I really had never seen a stack of bracelets with flowers and birds so I was quite pleased with my efforts. I even got a few votes.
I guess I should show my entry, which I originally thought was a little out of the box. I really had never seen a stack of bracelets with flowers and birds so I was quite pleased with my efforts. I even got a few votes.
I have been enthralled with some other metalsmiths gorgeous flowers, so I sawed out my own, put a little created ruby in one, made little silver and copper balls I soldered to the inside of others and then made a tiny little birdie. These were soldered to my twig bangles. As an extra, I added a separate twig bangle with balled ends to simulate budding branches. I had a great time doing this set and even surprised myself a little in the process. I am learning so many new things!
So, the winner of this challenge gets to pick the next one. I think everyone wants a little more time to finish the next project since many of our members just couldn't get one done in time for an entry. I am looking forward to seeing with Asa comes up with, since she is definitely our most "out of the boxness" member!
I also want to mention AWE shop, found at http://www.etsy.com/shop/AWEshop, who came up with the coolest copper tree and bird lariat I could ever imagine- she did this on short notice since she hadn't planned on entering because of other commitments! Said she was working on a project, this came to her, she stopped what she was doing and made this great necklace! Check it out on the metalsmiths blog, I want to have this kind of inspiration come to me while doing anything!
Depending on the deadline, I may or may not be able to participate. I am off to Spain for a much needed 2 week vacation. Spain had been on my to do list forever- DH was not supportive of this trip, he wanted to go to Scotland. My response was, we went on 2 other trips he wanted to do, this one was my choice. See, I really do know how to stand my ground. Of course, if he wouldn't go to Spain, I would have caved in and gone to Scotland. My reasoning with him was simple, they don't grow grapes in Scotland so I can't drink wine! I would have to drink Scotch all the time and would be asleep half the trip because that stuff kicks my butt!
Thursday, March 11, 2010
The Step Bezel Nightmare
I realize this isn't a picture that says much to the average person who likes jewelry, it's just a blue stone in a silver casing with a ring on top so you can put a chain through it and hang it around your neck. To someone who has journeyed along the path of an aspiring metalsmiths, they can see all the pain I went through to get just this far and will know I am still struggling because it fought me every step of the way. They say it's always the journey that's most important. So here's a little story about my journey to get to this point.
First, the blue stone was a gorgeous London blue topaz briolette that I had wire wrapped as a pendant. While trying to repair a small mistake in the wire wrapping I broke the tip of the stone where the wire goes through and holds it together. That was a really expensive slip of the pliers! So, I call on my trusty group of friends on the aspiring metalsmiths thread and get some advice. Make a step bezel says Clarity, you can do it, here's how. So I follow directions and find that, even following directions, metal has a mind of it's own. The little square wire I soldered onto the bottom of the bezel wire, made it almost impossible to move it into shape around my lovely stone. I had to do this in order to solder it together so the stone would stay in there and not fall out the back. The little square wire is the "step" it sits on. After much pushing, pulling, yelling and throwing a few obscenities, I did get it soldered closed and guess what- the stone fit. But, yes, there is always a but in metalsmithing , the bottom of the stone was fatter than the top, so it was laying belly up, tip down. The extra wire at the top is supposed to lay smoothly along the stone folded over with no" ruffles" to just hold it from falling out the front. Well that's all very nice in theory, but no one told me that after all that pushing and pulling that my little tool called a "bezel pusher" was going to need the strength of a sumo wrestler behind it to push what is now called "work hardened" metal over that stone. Along comes more advice from my friend Clarity (you must see her work at http://www.scrollworkdesigns.etsy.com/ ) she really does know what she's talking about, but she has a horseshoe somewhere to get all the work cranked out every week that she does! Clarity tells me, put the stone in something that's hard but with a dip in it so the stone will sit down in it while tapping with your hammer to get out all those nasty ruffles. You can see those in the picture above. Well, that little piece at the top of the page is small- smaller than a breadbox for sure, and smaller than every bottlecap and twist top I could find in my house. So, I finally found a teeny tiny cap and hammered away. I also have a little tool that I call a bezel smoother- it has a notch in the bottom that you scoot around the bezel- again trying to remove ruffles. (I actually used to like ruffles- on clothes anyhow).
I must digress a bit, because another step I took- without asking first- was to solder on the top of this project- the bail used to hang the pendant. This soldering not only got in the way of the hammering I was trying to do, but also hardened up the metal around the stone even more! Enter the second sumo wrestler to assist the first one! My thought was, I couldn't solder anything to the top after the stone was in there, the torch would fry my lovely blue topaz. As you can see from the second picture, the twist I put in the top made the part I soldered way to close to the front- no way to get a tiny hammer in that space.
Well, Clarity and I chatted again and she says, you can do this, try again, smooth it out, hammer it some more and file the back of that thing so it looks like you really tried. I won't bore you with the details of the third session, but the picture at the top is the final result I obtained without shattering the stone or melting the whole thing down and starting over. I learned a ton of information, hopefully I can retain it, and make a lot fewer mistakes the next time.
I see a lot of beautiful, professional looking work on Etsy and Artfire and many other sites. I wish the customers that shopped at these sites had even a tiny idea of what it takes to get to a place where you feel you have something really worth taking a picture of, writing a description for and offering up to the world to see and buy, handmade by you, with love and an awful lot of melted metal and crumbled stones before you have finally arrived at the point of offering your work for sale.
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
March Madness Sale
Getting around to having a sale is a lot tougher than it sounds- department stores have them all the time! Stores have tons of items that they put on sale every week to attract buyers, lost leaders, they call them. They get you in there with the promise of something really inexpensive, it's not exactly what you want, but the price is sooo good you buy it anyhow or, if you don't they figure you'll buy something else while you're in there.
Doing this in an on line handmade shop is a lot different. As an artisan, I have a lot fewer items to sell. I have already tried to price my items fairly and competitively with other artisans. But since everyone loves getting a bargin or just can't afford your regular price, I have decided to have a sale!
Rather than offer a small percentage off all my items, I have decided to offer a few items each week in March at a really good discount 15-20% off. Now to me, that's a sale.
My first item for sale the first week of March Madness is my 24k gold vermeil diamond moon pendant and labradorite marquire briolette necklace. This necklace is all hand wire wrapped in 14k gold fill with a great gold fill chain and lobster claw clasp and it does have a 1 point diamond! .http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=30391235. There are also matching earrings I will be putting on sale later this week.
I would also like to introduce some of my new heart charm bangles, these seem to be very popular, my cut out heart bangle is one of my best sellers. Stamped jewelry is also very poplular this year, allowing people to express themselves a bit. So I have added a poetry heart bangle http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=41659929 and two puffed heart bangles, one hammered and one smooth to my collection.
On a personal note, my daughter's wedding plans are moving right along. We have "the dress". A fun experience with her trying on everything her bridesmaids and I picked out, modeling and getting pix- the best were her with her knee high socks peeking out from under some gorgeous gowns! Now for the caterer and flowers! Wish me luck.
Doing this in an on line handmade shop is a lot different. As an artisan, I have a lot fewer items to sell. I have already tried to price my items fairly and competitively with other artisans. But since everyone loves getting a bargin or just can't afford your regular price, I have decided to have a sale!
Rather than offer a small percentage off all my items, I have decided to offer a few items each week in March at a really good discount 15-20% off. Now to me, that's a sale.
My first item for sale the first week of March Madness is my 24k gold vermeil diamond moon pendant and labradorite marquire briolette necklace. This necklace is all hand wire wrapped in 14k gold fill with a great gold fill chain and lobster claw clasp and it does have a 1 point diamond! .http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=30391235. There are also matching earrings I will be putting on sale later this week.
I would also like to introduce some of my new heart charm bangles, these seem to be very popular, my cut out heart bangle is one of my best sellers. Stamped jewelry is also very poplular this year, allowing people to express themselves a bit. So I have added a poetry heart bangle http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=41659929 and two puffed heart bangles, one hammered and one smooth to my collection.
On a personal note, my daughter's wedding plans are moving right along. We have "the dress". A fun experience with her trying on everything her bridesmaids and I picked out, modeling and getting pix- the best were her with her knee high socks peeking out from under some gorgeous gowns! Now for the caterer and flowers! Wish me luck.
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