Sealant quandary

I've spent last few weeks trying to find a good sealant for copper. I generally find people are using things like lacquer or wax as the way of sealing metal for jewellery. And that's where problems begin: someone throws name of some lacquer or something like that and that's it... but does that person know if it's safe for someone to wear item sealed with it? Because if it's safe for roofs, it doesn't necessary means that potential customer won't develop a nasty rush after wearing a piece of jewellery coated with it. Or, there is that great big "renaissance wax camp". Just one problem: waxes, and I assume it's true for the "wax of all waxes" too, tend to melt/soften in higher temperatures and human body gives of heat, after all. So it doesn't seem like a good way of preventing the green discolouration of the skin after wearing copper (and that's my main reason for researching sealants). Also, I recall reading something along those exact lines: that renaissance wax is great for sealing patinas (with the exception of fire patinas, but those are, partially, impossible to seal due to their nature), but doesn't prevent that green staining from developing.

And finally, the most frustrating thing for me: I managed to find three products that are supposed to be safe for wear, long lasting, preventing unwanted oxidisation and without tacky, artificial feel some other lacquers/sealants supposedly give to the piece, and... two of them are, apparently, impossible to find in the UK, and the third is available in a very limited range ( no spray, only liquid form) and expensive to boot. AAAAaaaaaaAAAAAA!!!!!!! I can happily slather some wax on the outside of, for example, pendant, but what about the side that faces the body? Or what about the chain, for that matter? Preventing oxidisation is fine for me, but I don't want my customers turning green ( and, I assume, most of them wouldn't want that either) and waxes apparently don't solve the problem, and good sealants are close to non-existing here. I swear, one more week like that, and I will go maaaaaaaad. Or a least madder than I already am
Ugh, I really needed to vent.

I hope your day is better than mine,
Kasia

Moon tree pendant and a feedback (finally!)

First and foremost: a bit late happy new year!

I had a really lazy Christmas and New Year break, and couldn't get myself back to work for a while ;P But I managed to stop doing... pretty much nothing ( well, that's not really true: I was reading. Copiously ) and made first ever pendant with bezel setting :) And I'm pretty happy with the result, even though I spent, I think, close to 6 hours working on said bezel - getting it to the right height required a lot of work, but it was worth it.

  And here it is. As I said, I really like how it turned out, even if it has a tendency to do weird things while photographed: like leaning to the side or twisting when suspended. And the stone is moonstone, by the way.

 

I shaped the pendant itself form art clay silver, and after drying it and firing, soldered on that bezel. I also made a bit of a mistake just after quenching and drying it... I wanted to make sure the bezel didn't get lopsided or... squished during placing and soldering it, so I put the stone in to see if it still fit inside... I wanted to drill a hole and cut an opening on the back, so the stone would have more light, but I didn't do it before placing the stone ( and I would like to point out that the piece was still not pickled and not oxidised at that point).

 Well, as it turned out, the bezel was still a good fit. Too good. The stone went in smoothly, but I couldn't get it out. I ended up drilling that hole in the back... by hand. I was holding the drill bit in my hand, and was really glad that it was fine silver, and not some harder metal. It took somewhere between half an hour and an hour, I think. 

After that, I was so glad to have the stone out, that I pickled and oxidised the pendant, polished it, and started setting the stone in place, and just then I realized that I didn't cut out the planned opening. So there is awkward hole on the back of the pendant instead of fancy cut out ;P But it served its purpose: the gave the stone more light while I was taking photos.
As it is a pendant, it won't matter while someone is wearing it - people, in general, are not translucent ;P

So that's about the pendant ( available here, by the way ) and now for something really nice for me:
finally, a customer who bothered with leaving feedback! Yay! She gave me 5 stars, and said this:
 "Beautiful! I love it and wear it all of the time. The craftsmanship is great. I look forward to buying from this artist again."

It's so cool to read something like that :D Also, I knew the item arrived safely - nice feeling, as opposed to wondering if it arrived, if the customer was happy, etc.

Till the next time!
Kasia