Hiatus in Jewellery Making Land...

Between the 2009 Mission to Mars program at Pinecrest Public School and the arrival of Spring gardening, it has not left a whole lot of time to spend in the shop.  I do intend to get back to it as soon as the must do in the garden is done.

New Ring :: Part 2

As I mentioned in my previous post, I could not wait to try out my new torch.
I continued my work on the new ring; lots of welding of various metal types.  

The design and shape of the ring is rather modern and asymmetrical.  The band is made of brass with small sections and appliques of silver and has a copper insert.  

I got my new torch !!!

I found out a while back that Bernzomatic makes a nice mini torch.   The ST900D is a mini torch with a 4 foot hose.  It has a regulator on the gas bottle and a control knob on the handle.  It should be perfect for welding small pieces, and I should be able to hold like a pencil.  This should give me better maneuverability when soldering.

I could not find a Canadian distributor, so I had to order it from the US... fortunately my good friend Maggie, played middle men, and forwarded the torch from the American vendor.

Many Thanks Maggie !!!

I can't wait to try it out !  It just happens that I have some welding to do on the ring that I started a few weeks ago. ;-)

Stay tuned for comments on the torch !

Starting on a new ring...

I made it back into the shop today, I started on a new ring.  

The band is in four sections.  2 long lengths of brass and 2 very short pieces of silver.

The parts are welded together and form a band that will be 1/4" in width.

• I started by flattening a bar of brass to the desired thickness, then cut two lengths from it.
  
• I then flattened a short piece of silver to the same thickness and cut two pieces from it.
  
• I annealed the brass lengths, then shaped them around the ring mandrel.
• I straightened and cleaned-up the ends of the brass and silver pieces to get them ready for soldering.
• I made up a temporary jig with tweezers and by carving a fire brick to hold the silver and brass pieces in position for soldering.
• I fluxed the parts and welded the 2 silver pieces onto one of the brass length.
• After cleaning the parts again, I fluxed the other brass length and welded it to the other half of the band.
• It took a bit of reshaping on the ring mandrel after the welding.  I took the opportunity to give a hammered texture to the ring.

That's it for now...

Cam & Follower Ring ...

I just needed to spend time in the shop this weekend, if anything, to get my mind off work. The week was rather rough... but on the good side, I survived the 16th round of layoffs since 2000.

Anyway, this ring's design reminds me of a cam and cam follower ;-)

The body is a flat band of silver.  At the top, two rectangular semi-circular wedges of silver are soldered to the sides of the band.

A cylindrical piece of brass is soldered into a notch on the top of the ring.

All the silver parts came from the scrap box, hammered into shape.

Silver Ring with Sodalite Cabochon...

Here's another attempt at recycling silver scraps.  This time things went more as planned. ;-)

I scribed the flattened piece of silver with the objective to from two long pieces for a simple band.

I cut the pieces with my jeweler's saw and then refined the shape with a file.

I bevelled an end of each piece in order to provide a very strong weld joint.

I then cleaned the pieces in silver pickle for a few minutes to ensure a strong weld.

The picture with the beautiful fire scale, is the resulting joint before it got pickled again.

I now needed to anneal the piece in order to hammer the band into shape.

I brushed on flux, to use as a visual temperature indicator.  Once the flux becomes liquid the temperature is just about right.

The flame was removed, and then the piece was quenched in water.  

The band then spent some more time into the pickle to remove the fire scale.

I placed the band material around my hand-made ring mandrel and hammered into shape.

I overalapped the band at the top where the bezel for the cabochon will be welded.  (black traces

 on the band).

The excess material passed the bezel will be bent upwards to form a clutch for the bezel to be welded to.

In this picture you see the clutches have been formed by bending the excess material and filed down to a nice shape.

The bezel fits between these two clutches and rests on the double band.

At this stage the doubled band and bezel were welded together, but the cabochon was not set.

Here the rings has gone through a cycle of cleaning, the stone (sodalite) is not yet set.

When I get a chance, the ring will go through the next level of cleaning, I will set the stone and apply some wax and give it a final polish.

Just in Time ...

This weekend my wife and I decided that the "fancy" chain was going to be a bracelet.

No... it's not that I ran out of patience... the thing got quite heavy.  Making a necklace out of this type of chain would be some heavy !

We made a clasp and large jump ring of sterling silver, and soldered it to the ends of the bracelet.

It just needs a bit of cleaning and some jeweler's wax to complete it.

It was a lot of fun to make together, we're already thinking about a next joint project !