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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Reticulating sterling silver

Reticulation is the process of heating metal so that it reaches melting point, then removing the heat before the metal melts.

I have experimented  with reticulating sterling silver to greater and lesser degrees and I love the textures and finishes that can be achieved. Heating the silver this much causes it to oxidise and turn black. Once you have the finish you are after you can tumble polish it which will brighten up the raised parts of the texture leaving the indented area dark. 

It's a good way of using up your scrap silver. For the earrings above and the pendants below, I have melted some scrap silver and flattened it through my rolling mill, then cut out the shape I want, either with my disc cutters or with my hand saw. I heat it with my blowtorch, moving it over and away, til the surface begins to bubble and melt, repeating the process until it's how I want it. By polishing and tumbling it you can the lovely organic textures shown here.