Thursday, November 18, 2010

Metalsmithing 101 - Class Six

Spinner Ring

My second project was a Spinner Ring. Sparkly isn't it. Spinners should come with a warning! I'm addicted to spinning the inner rings! I actually completed this ring at home during the week before class. For the sixth class I began my Mom's Charoite & Amethyst pendant. I got as far as soldering both the large oval and the small round bezel settings onto the backing sheet for the two stones.

I'm a bit stumped as to how I will proceed. The oval shifted when the flux was heating. The flux is a thick gooey paste that tends go on in globs and then it bubbles up when heating and moves small pieces so this has happened to me twice now (on both projects). When I work solo in my studio I'm going to water down my flux more to try and gain control over this problem.

Anyhow, it is what it is. Now I have an oval bezel that isn't properly aligned with the round bezel sitting above it. I might try to make the piece look more organic by cutting notches and curves along the backing sheet in hopes that the oval might not appear so crooked.

I'll take a photo tomorrow and show you what I mean. I plan on working on it this week and then soldering the bail in class next Tuesday then moving onto my ammolite pendant.

Ronnie is the jewelry designer at RadianTrace Jewelry. She's also the graphic artist at Mable's Makings, and the author of Ronnie Unplugged.

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