Flower necklace progress

Today we got tube and flush setting demontrations.
I made two more flowers both a bit smaller than the center flower. I also cut the tube for the cubic zirconias. Red in the center and clear on the sides. I will have to wait until next saturday to set them, as I still have to drill out the inside for the stone to sit. I also still have to file out a base in the center of the flowers and solder the tubes in place.
The flowers have been hammered flatter at the bend, still round at the center.
I don't know how far up the sides I will take the rings, I may just use 4 like the picture and use leather cord or a smaller chain for the rest.
I don't know...tune in next week and find out.

Here is a different angle (to view the tubes) and different set up. I had taken this picture at school.

Flowers flowers everywhere

I really missed class last saturday. It seemed like an eternity between classes.

Back on track now.

Today I oxidized my petal ring with LOS and then polished it on the wheel. I couldn't get a great picture of it, the light was messing with the shininess.

I think I see myself in there...Heehee

Then I got to my next project, soldering. I cut these petals out of 14 gauge silver wire and then filed them so that they would have a nice fit. This took a long time. The soldering I did all at once. I made sure that the pieces were butting up against each other neatly, and then fluxed the whole piece and layed tiny pallions of solder on each of the five joints and heated until the flow. Very exciting!

This is a sneak peek of what I plan to do with this very 60's style pendant. I will make another of the curly bail thingy for the other side of the pendant, and solder those on. I plan to tube set the ruby in the center of the flower. I will either set it on top of the center, or carefully file out the exact fit of the tube in order to sink the setting a bit.

I stayed after class and made these five soldered rings, they are 18 gauge and hammered. Totally groovy links! I don't know what to do with only five of them, so I'll have to make more so I can have a chain. These are a bit smaller in diameter than a dime. I used a sharpie to coil the wire around and cut the rings with a saw.

Semi Truck + Power lines = chaos

I had a most surreal experience on my ride to work today.
I was driving the route I always take, a short boring ride through the neighborhoods of Norwood. As I approached the stop sign next to the post office, I noticed a semi truck one car ahead, slowly driving into the opposite lane to take a huge swing of a right hand turn. I had never seen a Semi on this road, nor do I think I should have. I came to a stop behind the car waiting for the semi to turn.

The semi took the right turn along with the cables that power half of downtown Norwood.

This next part is extremely hard to explain, it was in slow motion, right out of a movie. The power lines that clung to the front of the top of the semi truck began to bungee wildly back and forth, up and down, and a few of them began to snap and spark. My eyes were everywhere, watching the lines all around me, slowly coming towards me and then reversing direction and soaring till they were well beyond where they originated. They went back and forth until the driver ahead of me gunned his car to avoid the lash, and I followed.

I gassed the car so fast, and blew the stop sign, taking a left to avoid the pole just ahead that was swaying back and forth menacingly. I guess I thought getting in a car accident would be less troubling to me than getting lashed with live wires. Thankfully neither happened.

I arrived at work very shaky but safe, and had to calm down a bit before my hands were steady.

Petal Ring

I completed my petal ring this morning.
I should have waited for some guidance, since I started to rivet the whole thing together before I spoke to the instructor about it, and now the petals are immobile.
You live and learn. I did get some tips on how to achieve this, but too late for this ring.
I still like the ring a lot, so no harm done.




After I completed the ring, we had demonstrations on a bunch of ways to solder. The demos took almost the entire class. The last 1/2 hour of class, I practiced soldering with some scrap copper. I sweat soldered some sheet scraps to a square piece of copper, and then soldered some wire onto the square as well. It wasn't any kind of design that I am proud of... it was just for practice, so I didn't take pics.

We will start on Project 3 in two weeks since next Saturday is spring break. I have two weeks to come up with a design that incorporates soldering sheet and wire, with any processes we have learned up to this point. I better put on my thinking cap.

Picture Frame pendant

I have had a busy weekend, I couldn't post yesterday's work until now.

I finished the picture frame pendant. I cut out a tiny picture, and recycled a piece of plastic packaging to use as the 'glass'.

The whole copper, paper, and plastic sandwich is riveted in the center on either side, and one rivet in the center on the bottom.

Since my regular instructor was back, I got back to my ring after finishing the pendant.

I soldered on the post for the rivet, I still need to polish the ring to a high shine before adding the petals and riveting it all together.

I am going to finish the polishing at home this week and complete the ring next saturday.