Behind Closed Doors--the Locket Cuff

Today was day two of the workshop with  Richard Salley (assisted by Martina Stein.) Click on the names for info about the workshop, including photos of the projects. 


Today we started day one of the Behind Closed Doors--the Locket-Cuff.  This was a little harder because I had to saw and solder--two things I don't do much of. I was glad to get the opportunity to learn how to do a hinge.  


I etched my metal for the locket and then cut out the frame and locket sections.  While the door section was etching I worked on a practice piece.  I had a lot of trouble and part of the tube didn't solder well.  The practice helped though because the soldering went better on the actual piece. 


Here are some photos of where I was at the end of the day.

Locket in progress

I think I did more filing than I've ever done.  When I finally got my hinges together the two doors overlapped.  I filed and filed and finally got them to meet.  There is still more filing for tomorrow.






My photo is a little small for the inside of the frame so I altered the frame so the opening is smaller than the template.  You can see my soldering was messy.  The center panel will be covered up in the finished piece, fortunately.




  



Part of this class was making some small hammers and bezel pushers.  I don't have any pictures of mine because I barely got started with them.  We also learned a couple of different ways to transfer the images for etching. 


During lunch a couple of us took a little walk and visited a couple of antique stores.  






This house--a bridal shop--had a lot of gingerbread and romantic touches.




Tomorrow we set a stone in a bezel on the locket and make and attach a cuff.

Jewelry Workshop with Richard Salley

I'm currently taking a three-day jewelry workshop with Richard Salley in Spring, TX. I'm really having a good time and enjoying learning some new things, as well as having fun just working on jewelry all day.


Today was the first day and the class is entitled "Lasting Impressions." Here's what I did today:






The two etched copper squares at the top are etchings I did in class to make the stamps.  I still have to rivet the handle onto the back of the head.  


The things I had the most trouble with was setting the stones in the bezel.  I'm having some difficulty getting the bezel cup to bend over the way it is supposed to.  On the plus side, I did solder those bezel cups on well because I've been using a lot of force on them and they are stuck on well. I'll go back to the bezels later. The earrings are the same length.  I don't know why one looks shorter in the photo.


The nautilus shell will probably be riveted to the swirly etched brass and will have a larger cabochon on it.  


We used PNP to transfer the designs for etching and I like it a lot.  


Here's Richard demonstrating soldering the bezel. 






Day Two and Three will be "Behind Closed Doors--the Locket-Cuff.  We will also make some tools. 


The workshop is at Spring Beads in the Old Town part of Spring, Texas.  The neighborhood is full of quaint shops, studios, and galleries.  Plus Spring Beads is full of beads, and supplies for metalworking, enameling, etc. It's the perfect place for a jewelry workshop. 


 Here are some pictures I took while I walked down the street.






The sidewalks are brick or stone.






The shopping possibilities are intriguing.









This building caught my attention:








Here's a close-up.  Apparently you drink wine while doing art. 





Sounds like fun!

Stamping Fun

Saturday I went to the Heirloom Productions Stamp Show in Grapevine, Texas. I got off to a late start and ran into a traffic jam and got there just under two hours before they closed.  


Less than 15 minutes after arriving I was lucky enough to win one of the door prizes!  It was a ten dollar gift certificate to Stamping Up.  I used it toward the price of this complete alphabet stamp set. Here's a sampling of the letters.





I use stamps mostly for etching.  When I get in etching mode I etch everything that doesn't run away from me.  The cats even start looking suspiciously at me. 


Someday I'd like to use stamps for other types of art, but I haven't gotten around to doing that yet. 


One of the coolest stamps sets I got was one from SAR (Some Assembly Required).  It's a little kit of stamps that makes a three dimensional heart put together with slots cut in paper. I plan to use metal.   I'll have to experiment a little to see what size slots need to be cut and what gauges of metal work best.  Click the link above to see some samples. 


I also stopped by Lost Coast Designs booth.  They are my favorite stamp makers.  I purchased several stamps from them.  Some of them I hope to use in some art projects, possibly at Art Unraveled.  My favorite is the small Bird Head Woman shown here. I got several of the stamps shown on this page. 


I found these cool eyelets at The Stamp Doctor. Flowers and hearts, oh my! Now I really have to start using eyelets in my jewelry.  These are a large size but I think I can make them work.







The new job is going well and I'm really proud of the good job our son is doing! I'm slowly getting used to getting up before dawn.  And I do seem to be getting a little more done.


Now to get some more etching done....

Etching Nickel Silver

I decided to use some nickel silver I have on hand for the back of the "magic" necklace.  I etched it with a cool stamp I have.  It will be trimmed so that the eye is the focus.  It has a mysterious somewhat occult feel to it that will go well with the theme of magic as illusion. 





I also etched a couple of other pieces. The longhorn and the winged heart will probably go on cuffs. 






This is the first time I have etched nickel silver.  I removed the pieces after only 45 minutes because the StazOn ink was coming off the longhorn.  Usually that doesn't happen quite so quickly.  The ferric chloride was fresh but the etch wasn't as deep as what I usually get with the copper and brass.  I don't know if nickel silver is harder to etch or if there was a problem with the ferric chloride.  My last ferric chloride etched very well, but when I opened it up tonight there was a metallic gray/blue crystalline stuff floating on the surface.  It was like a very thin sheet of some sort of crystal.  This is the first time I've seen that. Later when I have some time I'll pour it through a filter and see if it still etches after the crystalline stuff is removed.

Bead Table Wednesday--Etching Woes

I just finished etching some copper.  I had been storing my etchant (ferric chloride) for a while and when I opened it up there was some crystalline looking debris floating on the surface of the etchant. I had never encountered that before. I stirred it up and added some fresh etchant. It looked okay.

Whatever that debris was, it floated back to the surface and partially masked the surface of the copper.  I did stir the etchant when I checked the copper during the process but that wasn't enough. 

Here's the sheet I did with text and some fish. This would have been more than one piece after I cut it up.  I think the fish will be okay--the spots look kind of like bubbles, but probably only some of the text will be usable. And it may not be usable at all.  I'll have to see what it looks like with LOS on it.  The sheets look better in person than they do in the photos, fortunately.

 These other two pieces will probably be okay, but only because I was planning on cutting in close to the design, so the odd spots will be cut off. 

My husband was nice enough to strain the etchant through a coffee filter and get rid of whatever those particles were.  


These are just the first of a big batch I need to do. Hopefully the others will be contamination free. 


Check out the other Bead Table Wednesday posts:

Back to Etching

I'm working on jewelry for Red River Revel.  This is the biggest show I do every year. Last night and today I've been working on etching some copper and brass. 



Here's an etched copper plate.  I annealed it this afternoon and put it in a pickle of vinegar and salt.  The black stuff is bits of black fire scale coming off the back of the plate.  I annealed it face down so the back had the most scale.  It's almost finished in the pickle.  Next I rinse it, bath it in some baking soda water, rinse again, and clean it with 4 0 steel wool. Then it will be ready to cut with my disk cutter and I can dap it (dome it). After that I'll cut holes, antique it (or not), tumble it, and coat it with a permanent jewelry finish.  I like the finish I choose to be trouble free for the customer so I almost always coat my copper. After that it will be assembled into jewelry.

I made a list one time of the steps I go through from beginning to end in the etching-to-jewelry process and there are 15 steps.  Eight of the steps, maybe more, have multiple steps. Sometimes I skip some steps if I'm doing something different.  It isn't always necessary to pickle items after annealing them.  The fire scale can be attractive in some applications.

I love etched script and I found some wonderful script stamps at the Heirloom Productions rubber stamp show in Grapevine Texas last month.  I also got some really cool stamps at one of my favorite vendors,  Lost Coast Designs. I'm going to be using them soon.

One of my new projects is etched light switch plates.  I have some copper and brass switch plates and will be experimenting with them.