Photo Tutorial :: Piercing Framed designs

Recently I went into production mode making some pendants, and I thought I would document the steps.

I am making some pierced square framed pendants in different designs, I hope you enjoy the process.

First, I cut sections of 20 gauge sterling silver sheet into the finished size I desire. Here I am making 5/8" square shapes, so that is what size I saw out of the sheet.

File and sand all the edges and make the corners rounded and smooth.

Then I use dividers to locate the area that I will not touch. This is the square part that frames the design. The dividers are set to 1/8" for a nice border. The center design will ultimately be 3/8" square.

With the outline in place, it is time to scratch in a design making sure that each side has areas that touch the square, this way the center will be very secure and there is no fear of over cutting or weakness.

With my designs scratched into the square, I make divots in the metal where I need to drill holes to insert the saw blade. Making those little divots is very important because if you don't, the drill will just skate across the metal and leave you with a whole lot of sanding and filing to get the scratch marks out.

Now insert the blade into one of the drill holes and start sawing out the design, being careful not to cut through the sections that will hold the inner design inside the frame of metal.

Once you have all your designs cut out, sand the surface and use needle files to clean up the inside cuts.

This picture has some 1" pendants in this photo, too. But the 5/8" pendants are what we are making right now.

After you have cleaned up the pendants with needle files and sandpaper, it is time to solder on some sort of bail. Here I have soldered on a simple oval jumpring bail right on the backside so it is not visible from the front.

After pickling in a mild acid solution to get rid of the firescale and oxidation that soldering produces, the pendants get sanded once again and then have a time in the tumbler to harden and shine up.
Here they are finished.

And here are some of them complete with chains and ready to wear.

I hope you enjoyed!