A new ring from an old ring

So my Mother had a beautiful art deco ring set with marcasite and a dark green shiny semi-precious stone. I think the stone is Jade, but not sure. As a young girl I remember her wearing this ring on a rare night out with my Father.

One of the claws and a marcasite was missing and the ring was much too small for any of my fingers. I tried to repair the claw and did a reasonable job but ruined the marcasite in the process.

It's a stone that needs to be worn so I decided to make a new ring using the stone. Something quite ornate and in keeping with the era.

I used scallop bezel wire (from USA, as can't find it for sale in the UK) and twisted some wire to set round the edge. The shank is a nice weight D wire.

Really pleased with it, love wearing it!

Solid gold oak leaf pendant

My lovely friend Sharon asked if I would make her a necklace to resemble a miniature oak leaf she had found in her garden. The leaf is the size of my smallest fingernail, and quite perfect!

She gave me some old gold jewellery to melt down, pieces that had sentimental value, but that she wasn't going to wear again. Hmmmm, no pressure then.....

I have melted lots of silver but only very small pieces of gold before, and had no idea how difficult it would be to melt larger peices of gold. It seemed to take forever, with my fiercest burner on my torch, and just wouldn't melt fully. I tried it on my solder block, on my charcoal block and in a clay crucible. I googled it , with visions in my head of ruining my friends jewellery with nothing to show for it. Apparently it needs flux to melt and is also best done in a graphite crucible. I got a crucible from ebay for a few quid and had another go after adding flux to the gold. It was slightly better but I still couldn't get it molten enough to flatten it to go through my rolling mill. I ended up with a blob of gold, too fat to go through the mill. I resorted to sawing it through the middle and finally had a piece thin enough to roll in the mill. It took about half an hour and lots of huffing and puffing to saw through it. Phew, I was relieved to at last have piece to work with.

I put it through the rolling mill again and again, tightening the rollers as I went and annealing the gold to keep it soft. I got it down to about 2mm thickness and large enough to cut the leaf I wanted.

Next step was to cut the shape with my saw, with a thicker blade than I usually use. I captured the precious gold dust in my leather square that I keep on my lap when sawing.

Looks pretty rough at this stage, but I know I can turn this into something beautiful now. The next stage is to imprint the leaf pattern. This is done in the rolling mill with a synthetic leaf skeleton. The gold needs to be annealed and soft to get the best imprint, and I am careful to make sure the main spine of the leaf runs down the length of the rough gold leaf shape.

 

Looking good at this point, very happy with it. I put double sided sellotape and a piece of latex glove on the imprinted side to protect the pattern while I work on the edges.

It takes some time with sandpaper, files, and emery boards to get the edges smooth and soft and rounded, all the while being careful not to mark the pattern or the back. Next stage is to attach a bail. I use a piece of gold wire from a gold padlock, and hammer it a little to resemble the stalk of the leaf. Fiddly to attach, but being a leaf it doesn't have to be perfect. The last thing I do is curl it in a leaf like fashion using my pliers, protecting the surface from the pliers with a piece of thin leather.

It then goes into the tumbler for a few hours then I give it a final polish with rouge and my Dremel. I love how it has come out!

 

 

 

 

 

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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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Molly

Absolutely nothing to do with jewellery making, but I can't resist a post about my new kitten Molly. My husband Paul is VERY anti cuddly pets, and though I had a cat when we met and married nearly 30 years ago, when it died we never got another pet (apart from fish which leave me cold)!
Our daughter Bryony's friend needed to re home Molly, and Paul very reluctantly agreed we could give her a home......only because she was black and white, his hockey club colours, and because Bryony pulled the sympathy card having just had a major thyroid op!

She is beautiful, funny, and very very very naughty, gets into EVERYTHING, and seeks attention all the time. She was quite bitey and scratchy when she arrived, not surprising as we were her third home in as many weeks in her short life, so I tried the gentling technique, just massaging and stroking every bit of her at every opportunity. She is now pretty cuddly, though still naughty.

If I don't look at you, you won't see me.....

Blending in.......

She has brought fun into the family, already can't imagine life without her....though last week we nearly lost her. The lawn man was driving away in his van when he heard a miaow ...she was in the back of his van!

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Large cabochon sterling silver rings

A friend of mine Denise wears a large labradorite sterling silver ring, some 40mm by 25mm, with gorgeous blue green and grey hues. It's her signature ring that she wears every single day, and it is much admired and commented on. Most of my rings are quite delicate and not to everyone's taste, and I wanted to experiment with something bigger. I bought a labradorite cabochon off ebay, measuring 32mm x 20mm, and sold the ring before I had even made it to a friend of Denise's!

 I had difficulties soldering the bezel to the base, couldn't seem to get the bezel completely flat so there were gaps that the solder wouldn't fill, but all in all am pleased with the finished ring, and my customer loves it.

(The photo below is a rare one of me with reasonable looking nails....they are usually ragged and scruffy from being in the workshop.....one of the only downsides to silver smithing!)

I found some bargain cabochon's whilst visiting my sister Sue is Blandford Forum the other week. We strolled into the town and there is a small shop on the right on the way down the hill into the market square called aurora gems that I hadn't seen before. It sold a right mixture of beads, gemstones, rocks, as well as crystals and some finished jewellery and I found a marquise labradorite cabochon ring for £20 which I couldn't resist.

They didn't have any marquise cabochons for sale but the elderly chap behind the counter produced a tray of stones amongst which were some oval 20 x 10mm cabochons, labradorites, carnelian, aventurine, and jade. They were only around £1 each, (I would normally expect to pay £3 minimum, even as much as £6 for similar stones elsewhere) so I bought most of them.

For the carnelian ring I used some sterling silver D wire for the shank, and cut out the back of the bezel base to let the light shine throught the stone. Just sold my third one of these by word of mouth which is great!

I personally prefer the marquise cut to the oval, and I want to try making one of these next, though I expect it won't be easy to get neat corners like the one I bought, but practice makes perfect!!

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