I'm baaaaack ;)

Well, I haven't visited here for a while. And it's all fault of that adorable little creature:

The culprit!

This is Luna, and she's a weimaraner puppy, 5 months and 2 weeks old. And doing anything with her around was rather difficult until recently. Obviously, I can't take her with me when I work, and she wasn't very good about staying on her own. Fortunately, however, she finally seems to realise that spending some time by herself isn't the end of the world, and that she shouldn't try to eat camera tripod when I'm taking pictures, so I'm back to jewellery making. Unfortunately, I totally missed the Christmas-shopping period almost completely :( Oh, well... By the way, that's how she looked when we first got her:

Give me a moment to squee at my own dog ;P

Ok, now for the jewellery stuff...
I got a bunch of lovely stones, finally decided to get some silver sheet, and also got some pewter to practice casting a bit.
The first two things I made with my new cabochons are mixed metal pendants with bronzite. Until very recently I didn't even know bronzite existed, and now it's became one of my favourite stones. It's awfully pretty!

Running wolf mixed metal pendant

Background is made from copper, trees are bronze, and the wolf is sterling silver. The stone (isn't it lovely?) is prong set into a copper "bracket"- the metal part doesn't extend on the back of it - mostly because I wasn't sure I would manage to solder all those little prongs next to one another and wanted to save myself the time and trouble.

This is how it looks like on the back. Generally speaking, I'm pretty happy with it, only I wasn't able to file one of the wolf's paws as much as I would like: it's tiny, and the file couldn't reach everywhere it should've.
And the second pendant:

Fox and tree pendant

The metals sequence is the same here: copper on the back, then bronze, and then silver. After soldering the fox, I decided that its snout is still too wide, but there's nothing I can do about it now. Anyway, the fox was a pain to saw, file, and finish, because it's teeny-tiny: only 1.3cm long, and 0.5cm tall. Terrible.

Back looks the same as with the previous one. I was worried I wouldn't like the look, but it's actually not bad.
Both pendants come with 51cm/20in sterling silver chain.
I have three more bronzite cabochons, three rainbow moonstones, two labradorites (finally got my hands on some!), and a string of lovely peacock pearls. I'm really excited about working with those!

Apart from these pendants, I also made bat earrings, combined with an ear cuff:

Bat earrings

 By  the way, I'm actually really pleased with that picture! There's a surprise.
They're rather delicate, the bats being 1.3cm wide and 1cm tall. The earrings are 4cm long (without counting ear wires).

And that's how the one with the ear cuff looks like when worn. Not the best picture, but enough to get you idea. I really like them, and probably will make a pair for myself :D

And finally, there are also two new cuffs ( I really like making those!)
One's with an Eurasian Lynx:

And the other with a reindeer:

And that one really surprised me, because it sold not even a full day after I uploaded it to my shop! I could definitely do with more of surprises of this kind!

I hope I'll be back soon with more new stuff: I have several designs ready, now I only need to make them into reality :)

Have a great day!
Kasia

Otterly important post!

Sorry, couldn't help myself ;)
I decided to take a break from casting, and finish several designs that were waiting to be done. Two of those were otter-themed, hence the tittle ;P

Let's get straight to it. Remember the wolf cuff from previous post? Well, it's finished, added to my shop, and waiting for a new owner.

Running wolf cuff

I liked the running wolves idea from my previous wolf cuff, but this time I wanted one wolf as a focal point on the bracelet. I'm pretty happy with how the whole piece turned out.

There are also crescent moons on either end, and scrolls accompanying the wolf. I'm also somewhat surprised I managed to take pretty decent photos at the first try. That's a first.

I also made a second cuff, one I wanted to make for quite some time, but always something other got in the way. Well, I finally made it: Megaloceros giganteus (Giant Deer or Irish Elk, as it's commonly known) cuff!

All hail M. gigantetus!

I had to make that one a bit wider than usual: 3cm(~1.2in) instead of 2.5cm(~1in), because trying to fit all of those antlers on thinner one would be a total pain. I must say I really love the texture on etched parts on this one! It's sooo pretty.

And there are also crescent moons on this cuff.

Apart from those two, I also made my first ever pair of stud earrings (complete with making and soldering ear posts), and a pendant with my first ever flush setting!

And so, we've come to these otters I mentioned in the beginning of that post.
Here's pendant:

Otter pendant

You could call it experimental piece: aside from flush setting, I also had to do a lot of sweat soldering here, and that's something I'm pretty hopeless at. I'm really happy that it took me only two tries to solder both parts of the otter to the washer.

Noticed the belemnite fossil in this stone? That's a mesozoic rock right there!

I also managed to solder back piece at the first try, without any of the already soldered part coming undone. That's a big success for me. I have something of a love-hate relationship with soldering: it's either going great, or I can't solder anything, with already soldered joints falling apart, even though the part I'm soldering is squeaky clean, and already soldered ones are as dirty as possible, with ochre pastel smeared all over them.

I'm also very glad I have watchmaker loupe at home. Those are 1mm CZs, and trying to set them without one was a nightmare. After I remembered the loupe and used it, it all went a lot faster and easier, as I was able to actually see what I was doing.

And here are aforementioned earrings:

 Unfortunately, I made three attempts at taking good pictures of them, and failed miserably at all of them.
These earrings are also a bit experimental themselves, as I decided that butterfly backs soldered to the back parts of them would look really weird (plus, I wasn't sure I would be able to do this without melting them), and decided to make "built in" butterflies myself.

 It wasn't as difficult as I feared it would be, and they work just fine. The only problem I have is with the wire I used to make ear posts. It's 0.6mm, and I would prefer 0.7mm, (but I didn't have any) to make them a little bit stronger. I know that, theoretically, ear posts should be made from 0.8 or 0.85mm wire, but I, for example, can't wear 0.85, as they're too big, and even 0.8 ear wires are a bit too big, and wearing them is really uncomfortable, and can even sometimes hurt. I know majority of people do just fine with standard ear wires, but I decided to make them smaller on the off chance someone with problem similar to mine should buy those. 

I also had the weirdest, I think, experience while soldering ear posts: I managed, and I have no idea how I managed this, to pierce through copper with sterling silver wire. Let this sink in for a moment. I took a piece of copper, melted solder all over it, heated it, dunked the end of wire into flowing solder, started to heat the earring part I wanted to solder that wire to, and touched the end of the wire to the copper piece. It didn't stick, so I tried this again (and I already had one ear post soldered, so I knew this should work), almost got it, but my hand shook and it again didn't stick. I decided to pickle the back, clean it, and try again... and then I noticed that I had a lovely, 0.6mm hole right in the middle of my earring. I didn't overheat the copper part. I'm just talented like that.

I must say, I'm awfully fond of these earrings. I'm thinking about making something similar for myself. Actually, I'm trying to think of a way wolf earrings would look good made in this style.

To make sure everything works as it should I wore them all day before I even oxidised them. They stayed in place, so that's good. 

And let's finish with a mild rant: I wanted to buy fire bricks, to create nice, insulated area for melting metal. Because I wanted  to be able to melt it a little bit faster, and waste a little bit less gas. So I went to the only place I know off that stores (or, should I say stored) firebricks, and... nothing. Null, zero, nada. Not a firebrick in sight. And, as I already said, that's the only place in my town that ever had them. I got, as you can imagine, a tinsy bit angry. Now I'm left with 2 options: option one: not having that nice, insulated area; option two: buying bricks via internet, and paying king's ransom for shipping. Grrr.
I hope that maybe they'll restock firebricks in near future. That's just another thing added to my recurring rant called "why can't I get this in Northern Ireland?!?". For example, good silversmithing classes. I could apply to university (and fail miserably) or... or... or... fly every week to London, I guess. Sigh. And now firebricks! People have fireplaces and things like that. Firebricks should be a little bit easier to find than a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

Ok, I'll stop that rant now.

Till the next time!

Kasia

Delft clay casting pt.2: dealing with gas porosity, ring band moulds, and something akin to progress.

I spent another week learning how to cast metal. And today got pretty close to obtaining satisfying results. I'm not quite there yet, but I saw the light at the end of the tunnel, so to speak.
Last week I've ordered 20g of pure silver casting grain, to make more of my 30%silver 70%copper shibuichi alloy. I made about 5g (as I already had 10g of alloy, and I didn't want to melt all of it at once) more, and tried to cast something presentable.

It was a right amount for the wolf model, but I was still getting loads of porosity. Yes, I learned that those bubbles I was getting in the casts are result of gas porosity: apparently, gas can dissolve in molten metal. That was news for me. And using flux is supposed to eliminate it. However, I was using flux, and still getting the bubbles in my pieces.

So I went back to browsing the web, and at some forum (I really don't know where, sorry) read that if there is even a little bit of solder on the metal you melt, it will behave terribly in castings.

That got me thinking. I melted art clay pieces that I just gave up on. I did my best to clean them, but it was possible that some solder made it into the alloy. So I made another 15g from scratch, using only the casting grain and well-cleaned copper. And that actually helped a bit.
See here:

It's so tantalizingly close to good cast, I don't even know if I'm happy or frustrated.

 Sorry about the picture. But you can see that there are almost no pores here: apart from that huge one between the ears, and one on the paw, and, I think, some tiny ones on the snout.
I wouldn't mind the one on the leg that much, actually, but that one smack right between the ears just won't do. Next time I'm casting this piece, I'm going to add a bit more flux and see if that helps. There are more bubbles on the back, but that can be dealt with. But on the front I have very limited options for clean up available. Still, it's progress.

I also have to work on my ring band moulds, as I can't seem to find a good way of making them, and the metal solidifies in the funnel, without filling the mould itself. I, again, searched the net for pictures of how others make their moulds, and found one approach I didn't tried yet. I hope this one will work for me.

Apart from casting, that takes up huge chunks of my time, I also decided to make another cuff, and made project for another one. I could really use guillotine cutter, or good metal shears, because, even though I'm getting comfortable with using my saw, and getting to even like it (and that's a huge surprise for me, let me tell you), I absolutely abhor cutting through such thick sheet. I mean, it takes up to 15min to cut out 15cm x 2.5cm blank for the cuff! And after passing some length mark ( somewhere between 5 and 10cm ), my saw frame gets in the way, and bangs against the sheet, and keeping it going in straight line is tricky.
Anyway, here's how the cuff looks right now:

Unfinished cuff

It's close to finished, but I need to clean the etching up a little bit, and then of course oxidise it. I formed it, and then slapped myself in the forehead very hard, because I need to use gravers somehow on the etching! That means I need to flatten it again. I get overexcited sometimes, adding myself more work. But that's minor issue.

I also almost finished those lockets I've been working on for forever now. I have to clean them up, add all the finishing touches... and figure out what to do about a teeny-tiny slit that appeared in one joint on the raven locket. That's major reason as to why I haven't finished them yet.

So, that's it for now. I hope I'll have finished, nice castings next week!
Till the next time!
Kasia.

Delft clay casting, pt1: tools issues, copper issues, and a lot of issues in general. And shibuichi.

If you're following me on google+, you may know that I recently ordered supplies for casting. I have a lot of scrap copper laying around, and I wouldn't be able to make anything out of it, so I've decided to try my hand at casting. This way I could still use that copper, and it wouldn't be wasted.
 So, I've got my waxes, crucible, tongs, and of course the delft clay, and got to casting. And found out that melting copper is a pain. It either wouldn't melt at all, or wouldn't stay liquid long enough for me to pour it into the mould. It was frustrating, to say the least.

Tools!

I've spent 1.5 day trying to melt the copper. Then, at the second day, I manged to do this, and it aaalmost stayed liquid long enough to pour it, but it hardened as it was flowing toward the edge of the crucible. I deemed that partial success, and was eager to try again, and that's when I noticed this:

 

Poor torch :(

I did manage to melt the copper, but the plastic casing of my torch... not exactly melted, but, well, did what you can see in the pictures. I got pretty scared it wouldn't work, or that I wouldn't be able to change burners, but after it cooled I found out that I can remove the burner and attach another, the torch works, and the only damaged part is the upper right hand side of the casing closest to the nozzle.
Thankfully, the damaged part isn't anything vital for the torch operation, and the damage is superficial, and limited only to this side.

Feels ;(

But it's pretty clear that one won't melt copper without taking damage. So I had buy another. At first I wanted to order something via internet, but then anything I liked was expensive, and I would have to wait another several days before I would be able to continue my casting experiments, so in the end I went shopping, remembering that the shop I got this torch stocked also a bigger one, without any plastic parts near the nozzle.

It's huge and quite scary

This one makes the biggest flame I ever handled, and unfortunately doesn't have automatic ignition. By now, I got the hang of firing it up, but the first time was scaaryy. Sorry for the crappy pictures, by the way.
Huge flame or not, I still had problems melting the copper. I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong, but I can get it to a semi-liquid state, and then... it suddenly cools and solidifies. I don't know if I direct the flame wrong way or what, but that's what happens.
So I got rather discouraged and angry. I also remembered I had a little bit of scrap silver, and decided to see if I can melt that. And if I can pour it into the mould. It went much easier, though I had to try 3 or 4 time before I managed to get it into the mould without the metal solidifying half-way through.
However, I had only 2.8g, not enough to cast anything. But at least I got to practice pouring the metal. It's not that easy.
But I still wanted to melt that scrap copper. And today I read about Japanese copper and silver alloy, called shibuichi. It comes in different ratios: one is basically sterling silver, but there are other kinds with bigger amount of copper. It can be 90%copper 10% silver, or 95%copper 5%silver, or 60%silver 40% copper, and so on. There are also mixes with tiny percentage of gold (like 1%). what's more, it melts in lower temperature than copper and pure silver. I decided to make 70% copper 30%silver mix.
I thought I would have to melt copper entirely before adding silver. But, typically for Murphy's Law, when I needed molten copper, it just wouldn't melt. I got angry, and tossed the silver in when the copper wouldn't get to even the half-liquid state. The silver melted right away. And, surprise, surprise... suddenly I had crucible of fully liquid metal. It took seconds for copper to melt as well once the silver was introduced.
I managed to get it into the mould as well, and quite easily at that.

Crucible with a little bit of metal solidified near the edge. The red stuff is borax. Not sure why it's red.

I don't have enough of that alloy to cast any of the models I have, not even enough for one thin ring band, but I'm going to buy a bit of silver casting grain, and make some more.
It has a lovely colour, kind of silverish-brown with a light pink undertones. It reminds me mostly of pink gold, though it's lighter in colour.
I have only one, bad picture, but here it is:

Partial success at casting

The yellow is patina, it can be easily removed with sand paper. It's not anywhere near perfect, but I'm happy I can melt it, and keep it liquid long enough to obtain the cast. I'm not sure why there are those tiny dimples in the casting. I'm going to rummage through the internets and try to find out.
Ufff... so that was the first week of delft casting experiments. I'm definitely more encourage to keep learning this now that I actually have metal that I can melt. The details wouldn't be bad if it wasn't for those bubbles, holes, or whatever these are.
I hope the next week will be more better!
Till the next time,
Kasia.
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Drilling through titanium is not so scary, after all!

Remember I've got some titanium and was having loads of fun flame-colouring it, and a bit less fun wearing saw blades down like crazy? Well, I've finished one pendant (the other one is aaaalmost finished).
What I really feared was drilling holes for rivets. I ordered diamond drill bits to do the job, but was still quite apprehensive about the whole process. I even invented a very high-tech cooling set-up for drilling... namely: yoghurt container with thickly folded paper and enough water to keep the piece submerged. Oh and there was also plasticine layer to weight the paper down. High-tech, I tell you!
As it turned out, drilling was pretty easy. I fell in love with diamond drill bits, and would happily use them for anything, if only the weren't so expensive!
I also promptly broke one, but that wasn't titanium fault, it was all me.
Oh, I also bought rotary tool with flexishaft, and I absolutely love it! I makes drilling (and engraving) much easier!
The finished piece looks like this:

Copper and titanium wolf pendant

Placing the rivets was a little tricky, especially on the side with the pierced out moon. That's why the rivets are not evenly spaced.  I first drilled through copper alone, then taped both metals together, and drilled through titanium placing drill bit in holes in copper.

Back

The copper part is of course oxidised, as well as etched. The rivets are a bit chunky on the back of the pendant, because I decided to make balls at the ends of the wire, and them hammer them flat. That was less because of design choice, and more because I wanted to make my life easier, and have just one side of the rivet to worry about ;)

That photo captures colour better

It was a fun piece to make! I'm now (vaguely) planning to make some earrings out of leftover titanium, and maybe one more pendant(if there will be enough of the metal left for that). I also don't know what I did differently the second time I was sawing titanium, but I actually used up one less blade for a slightly bigger piece.
My thoughts on that metal so far: it gives interesting colour options, is very light, so it's great for earrings, and allows to make bigger pieces that will still be light, sawing it is a pain, as probably is forming it ( I didn't try that, but I'm guessing based on its hardness), drilling through it isn't a real challenge when you have diamond drill bits and go slow. You also can't solder it, so you can go creative with cold connections. Guessing by the drilling process, and the fact that the drill doesn't seem dulled or worn, you can probably engrave it with diamond engraving bits. That's one thing I'm going to try!

It's an interesting material to work with, and I'm going to experiment with it a bit more :)

Till the next time!
Kasia Follow my blog with Bloglovin

That weird salt water etching

Ah, salt water etching. A technique I use very often. Just to remind you (or introduce you to, if you've never heard of it) what it is: it's an etching technique, in which the traditional acids or mordants are replaced with salt water an weak electric current. The piece to be etched is submerged in over-saturated saline solution, and attached to positive charge. Scrap piece of metal is submerged as well, attached to negative charge. It's an electrolytic process.

Etching... see the bubbles? It's a negative terminal

 As with any etching, you need some kind of resist, and from what I read, finding one that works is trickier with this process than with traditional etching. Permanent markers, for example, are useless, as they wear off way to fast. I find nail varnish to be the best resist. Acrylic paint also works, but is more prone to coming off the etched piece. Nail varnish generally last throughout the whole process.

Lately, I've been working on bracelets. And I encountered problems I never had with this technique before. Depth of etching varied not only from piece to piece, but also within one piece alone. The texture of etched parts also varied. It's weird. And I don't get why is this happening. All pieces etched for the same amount of time, 3h. I always etch for this amount of time, as this gives (usually) a really nice, deep etch.

If I ever before had any problems, it was with too shallow etchingt, if I used solution so saturated with copper, that it wasn't as effective as before. But this is to be expected.

I, however, never had a piece that etched through. That is, until recently. I had to discard one project, because there were holes in some places. Again, the same sheet gauge, the same amount of time. Weird.

The first, slightly botched attempt at a cuff

So this was the first in the series of bracelets. Remember I was working on a wolf cuff? I didn't like the result, forgot about it for a while, and then decided to have a second go at it, with a bit different design. I would like this one if it wasn't for the wolf you see here, and another one closer to the end of the cuff.
Anyway, what I really do like about this cuff, is its texture. See here:

Texture of the first wolf cuff.

The texture of the etched parts is gorgeous. The etching is deep, texture is grainy, and just really nice. It looks like this on the whole cuff. This cuff etched for three hours, in freshly mixed saline solution.

Now, after seeing etching results, I decided to have another go, as I felt I can't sell this to anyone. So I made another wolf cuff.

The second wolf cuff, with better etched wolves

Here, I also wasn't 100% happy with the etching, but decided this one is good enough to put up for sale. I guess other people liked it better than me, as it's already sold. Anyway, I liked the image on this one, but the texture wasn't as nice. And uneven to boot. On one end it resembles the texture on the first cuff, on the other end, the etching is shallower, and the texture is... not as interesting.

Texture on the second cuff

This picture shows the texture around the middle of that cuff. You can really see the difference, but it still is somewhat similar to the first cuff. But near the end...

Texture on the second cuff, near one end

 The grain is sparser here, not to mention those... lines? grooves? I have no idea what caused this. As I mentioned, etching here is shallower, but this is not that weird, considering that it etched in already used solution. What is weird, however, is that the etching doesn't have uniform depth: it's deeper on one end than the other. It also etched for 3h.

The next cuff I made was the raven cuff.

Raven cuff

I'm awfully happy with etching on this one. However, that one is weirder that the last. It etched in fresh solution. For three hours, as is the case with all of them. And the etching is a lot shallower than on the first wolf cuff. And it also differs in depth on this one! I don't get it!
Look:

Texture on one end of raven cuff

Here, it's grainy, and of decent depth. Not as nice as on the first wolf cuff, but pretty nice. No grooves, lines, or any other weird stuff ( and yes, I know I use the word weird a lot in this post).
And the other end?

Why is this happening?!?

A lot shallower, not as grainy, but still uniform texture. If anyone have any idea as to why this may be occurring, I sure would like to know!

And that's not all. After the wolf cuff sold, I decided to make another wolf cuff, with different design of course. So I cut the strip out of the same copper sheet I used for all those bracelets, put it in solution, etched it for three hours, cleaned it... and almost had a fit. Why? Because of this:

A hole!!!

Holes! Holes in the metal! Ugh!

And not just one at that!

I didn't bother with cleaning it properly, there was no point. But, what is, again, weird here? Of course, it etched through only on one side! The other one looks like this:

The end without holes

It's etched to about the depth I was expecting, texture is bizarre, true, but overall it's what I thought I would see after removing the nail varnish. Well, that one went to a certain box, and waits there until I finally decide whether I want to try delft clay casting or not. It would be shame to waste all that copper, after all.

Oh, and I also had one more unpleasant surprise. Remember titanium pieces I'm working on? Well, I made copper parts, cut them, painted them, put them into etching... and one etched perfectly, and the other one etched through, and I had to start over. And they both were etching at the same time!
So frustrating!

As I mentioned, I have no idea why this started happening. It doesn't make much sense to me. The set up is the same. The salt I'm using is the same. The source of electricity didn't change, and nor did the voltage. It's just so weird. Anyone has any ideas?

Till the next time!
Kasia

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Playing with titanium

Last Friday I did something very, very out of character for me: I bought something on an impulse. I never buy stuff impulsively. Never, ever. And this one time I did. I ordered some titanium. Yes, titanium. A small piece: 2.54cm x 15.24cm, and 0.4mm thick. I was really surprised when it was delivered today: talk about fast shipping!

The monster... aka small, thin titanium strip.

Anyway, since Friday I was wondering if I will be able to even cut it, as titanium is notoriously hard metal. I had also no idea what I would make out of it, until yesterday.

Quick and dirty "concept sketches". I started with the wolf one.

Naturally, when it arrived, I just had to play with it! What I can say after one day of handling titanium, is this: it's incredibly light metal. Honestly, I was surprised. Almost felt like aluminium. It's lighter than copper, but much, much stronger (obviously). The strip I ordered came annealed, so it's soft, as far as titanium goes, but it still is pretty hard. I was able to bend the strip a bit, though not permanently. It has also kind of satiny feel to it. I really can't describe it better than that.


I was a bit worried about my saw blades. I just couldn't imagine how many of them I would use up cutting through the metal (or, indeed, if it will be at all feasible with the blades I have). I'm happy to say it went better than I expected. I cut out a teardrop shape, about 2.5cm in height, and maybe 2cm in the widest place.

The titanium blank, and all the saw blades that perished cutting it out.

I used up three blades on that. The last one still had some teeth left.

Click for close up on those poor blades

Now I'm wondering if I should buy better blades just for titanium, or if there's no point in that. I wouldn't like to spend £4 on 10 blades only to find out they dull as quickly as the ones I'm using right now.

After that was cut...

The first blade was done for.

After I cut the shape out, I had a bit tidying up left do do, especially in one place. I filed the sides down a bit, and this went pretty fast. I was surprised, I thought it would be much more difficult.

By the way, the little teardrop shape can't be bent. I mean, I just used my hands, and didn't apply unreasonable force, but it's really stiff. I'm trying to imagine hardened titanium, and I can't ;P

The shop I ordered the titanium from had also niobium, and I was tempted to buy that instead, but there is one little, teeny-tiny issue that was the key factor in my decision to buy the dreaded titanium after all. Niobium has some awesome oxides, that come in an awesome array of colours. Titanium has pretty much identical colour range, with one difference: you can colour titanium with a torch, but, as far as I know, you can't do that with niobium. And I didn't feel like playing with high voltages required for anodising niobium. I mean, they start low, around 10V, but go beyond the 100V mark, and that's positively scary.

The pendant I started working on requires only one colour: deep blue. There will be another part of titanium visible, but I plan to leave that one its normal silver-gray colour. The second one will require light blue and gold.

As I was experimenting with flame colouring today, I made a mistake and overheated the piece. That changed the colour I was aiming for, the deep blue, to light blue with some whitish splotches. So I had to sand that down, and start again. This way, I got an answered to my question: will I be able to obtain two colours on one piece? The answer is yes.

Heat coloured titanium. Not perfect, but just look at those hues!

When you heat titanium, its colour changes somewhat in this sequence: first, it's getting a bit more... silver-ish. Then, a bit brownish, that it gets a really nice golden colour, and then the colour shifts towards blue spectrum: first a purple, then deep blue, then sky blue, then gets almost white. From what I read, the next colours would be greens and pinks, and finally dark grey, almost black. I didn't get to those colours though.

 What is important here, for me, is that when I was making a second attempt at deep blue, I wasn't working on an entirely clean piece. I sanded a part of it, but another part stayed sky blue. Thanks to this, I know now that for the second piece I can easily obtain sky blue and gold on one piece of metal. The coloured part didn't change one bit.

 I must say, I absolutely love the wide range of colours you can create this way! Flame colouring titanium is much easier than it is with copper: I know, I tried. Apparently, I'm hopeless with obtaining heat patina on copper

Now I just have to wait for diamond drills bits to arrive, because you can't solder titanium, so I will have to rivet it and the copper together. I did make first opening in the copper part of the pendant today, just to see how the two look together.

First opening made.

It looks better than in this picture. I didn't cut all of them, as it was pretty late already, and I though my neighbours wouldn't be very happy if they had to listen to drilling for much longer ;)

After one day experience with titanium, I can say that it's definitely an interesting material to work with, and its colourful oxides provide a whole range of possibilities. I can't way to finish this piece, and to see how it will turn out!

I'm also wondering if my engraving bits would survive engraving titanium... they do have diamond tips, and I have two sets of them, but still. I wonder how long they would last...

Till the next time!
Kasia