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.