Reticulated twig rings

I had an order this week from Heather. She bought the reticulated ring set for her daughters 21st birthday. Her daughter is an art student interested in natural processes and designs.

So just for you Bryony, happy birthday, this is how I made your rings :)

I use 1.8mm sterling silver wire. It comes in a neat coil, but for these rings I have to bend it about a bit and generally 'lose' the newness.

I heat it with my blowtorch to keep it soft and annealed, which makes it easier to work with as the metal hardens the more it is 'worked'.

Then I reticulate the silver, basically heating it evenly until the surface begins to melt, then quickly removing the heat before it does melt. I keep this up till I get the finish I am after.

I cut the blackened wire to 3 lengths using my ring sizer then I shape them up using my ring mandrel and a rawhide mallet, check the size again, then solder each ring closed with some medium solder. I pickle them to remove the oxidation from soldering then do a final reshape on the mandrel.

Meanwhile I melt some 9ct gold scraps to form the bead. When you melt silver or gold it pulls together into a ball. I do this in a charcoal block with a well in the middle as I find it gives the smoothest finish to the melted metal. I then solder the ball of gold to one of the rings.

Next I pickle again to clean, then I blacken the rings up using liver of sulphur.

This emphasises the texture and makes them more organic looking and rustic. Next they go in my barrel to tumble for a few hours to polish and strengthen them and voila, done. Sometimes I need to polish them some more with my Dremel, but these ones are good straight out of the barrel. I hope you like them. I have a set of these and love wearing them.

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New lovelies

Some new lovelies for my etsy shop Tripoli and Rouge...
This necklace is made from a heart shaped glass cabochon. I have used loose chain from Silvercitybeads which is already oxidised and has a lovely vintage look to it.

This one is forged from a square of sheet silver, which I hammered and shaped to form a coil. I oxidised it for added depth and to make it look vintage. The chain is one of my favourites from Cookson gold, belcher no 3.

This one is made from a pebble of recycled sterling silver. I have left the pebble quite rustic and organic and oxidised, not polished, and I have set it in a scalloped bezel setting. I have been searching for scalloped bezel from a UK supplier and couldn't find any, so had to buy it from the USA. There are so many materials that I struggle to find from UK suppliers, especially some of my favourite cabochons, and invariably have to source from elsewhere which then means buying in small quantities to avoid customs charges.

The scalloped bezel looks lovely but it has it's challenges. It needs to be seamless, with even scallops all round, and I had to stretch it in my roller a few times to get it spot on. Easy to overdo it and waste the bezel strip! Same chain as the heart above, so pretty and goes perfectly with the pendant.

This one I love, I wanted to recreate a seed I found in my garden....I think it is from an ash tree. Starting with sheet silver, I cut out the basic shape using my jewellers saw, and sanded the edges to get them smooth. I made the centre groove first, using a strip of fine wire placed on the silver through my rolling mill, then I put through the mill again with a course feather to get the finer lines. I annealed it before shaping it using pliers. Oxidation emphasises the texture.

And this one, just a simple hammered and domed pendant, with a drop of silver in the base of the dome. Heavily oxidised, and hangs from the belcher no 3 from Cookson gold.

Lastly, a simple twist of 1.5mm sterling silver wire.

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Using up scrap sterling silver

As a silversmith I save every tiny scrap of sterling silver that is left over when making jewellery. It is too precious not to. Even the dust when I am sawing is caught in a square of leather on my lap and tipped into my scrap jar. You have to be very careful not to mix fine silver with sterling, or let any other metal into the scrap jar. That way you can be sure that when you reuse the scrap that it is pure sterling silver. 

I love to experiment with scrap silver, trying techniques I have not tried before. In this post I have turned some scrap silver into a beautiful free form pendant. The first batch of photos showing the making is my second attempt - first attempt produced the pendant at the bottom but I didn't take any photos during the making. 

First I melted a small pile of scraps on my pitted old solder block. This gives it a nice texture on one side.

Once it is a molten ball of silver, wobbling in the heat, I gently but quickly flatten it with the smooth side of a charcoal block. I am sure there are better safer ways of doing this but it works for me!

The scrap silver after being flattened - very pleased that this one has a hole in it, it will add interest.

Then I put it through my rolling mill a few times.....

...in between annealing it to make it soft and workable again, as rolling it work hardens it.

 I keep going till it is thin enough and large enough to form into a pendant.

Then I dome it gradually working down from a large wooden doming punch .....

to smaller steel ones...

and work down the doming block using smaller and smaller bowls will it begins to form into a ball. Again I needed to anneal a few times to soften it.

After doming......

After pickling to remove oxidisation, it goes into the tumbler for a couple of hours which smooths off the edges. Some hand filing and sanding was also needed to remove some pointy edges. 

I wasn't sure intially what to make it into. It would make a lovely statement ring but wouldn't be practical. So Pendant it would be!

The photos below are the first one I made. I soldered a half jump ring onto the top to hang it, and soldered a small silver pebble (also made from scrap) to the bottom. It looks like a drop of water.

I hung it from my favourite belcher chain from Cooksons. Initially it wasn't right - not quite balanced as a piece of jewellery so I added the sterling silver bead as well. Oxidised the finished piece in liver of sulfur then polished, mostly the outside, to leave the inside with a dark patina.

I love it, more than anything else I have made. It's not going in the shop, it is most definitely for me. I will be making more to put in the shop, and of course every one will be completely different to the others, completely hand forged, unique and (in my biased eyes) beautiful......