home course

I started this over the weekend, then went out to dinner, had to go to work, and you know how it goes… Your day job just takes over.

BUT I went into work early today so I could get home early and finish this. You see on Sunday I had cut out the copper (the book says bronze, but copper is what I had), and rounded the ends, and there it sat.

So today, when I got home, I was able to put my NEW mushroom stake in the bench vise [reminder to me: Drill hole in work bench to hold stakes], pulled out my planishing hammer and went at it. Gosh it was fun [despite imagining I was whacking someone] with the balled end. Then when I was done making the dimples, I turned the hammer over, and went at the edges. All this hammering took a total of maybe 30 minutes.

Then on to annealing, quenching and over to the polishing wheel.

It polished up well, and then I had to shape it. I don’t have a bracelet mandrel as I usually use the one at the club, so I found some different sized spray cans to use, and viola!

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It has been a busy week, and I have only now had the time to take my projects out of the vibrator. I put them in last Sunday evening.

Yes, last Sunday I tackled the second project in the ‘Workshop’ book, which is to make an ‘S’ ring. This project builds upon and modifies the ring made in project #1.   Here is a picture of some of the ‘S’ rings I made

I then took this project further and decided, why not make them nest. So off I went and made more ring, of the same size, and just before I twisted the ’s’, I put then together with tape to hold them in position. After taping them together I put them on the ring mandrel and twisted. Here is the result.

Double S

But after that, I was looking at the book, and I noticed that at the end of project 1 there was a picture of a stone, in a bezel, mounted on the octo’ ring. I scoured the book but this was not a project that was listed.  It is on page 40 in the lower right corner of the page, if you have the book. This ring was a small garnet cab and was just calling to me.

Well, knowing how to make a bezel and I had some small garnet cabs in my stash, I then pulled out more wire, made 4 more octo rings, then made the bezels cups with an open back so light can come through the stones, soldered the bezel cups to the rings, and set the stones. I did find I had picked a bezel wire that was just a bit too big, but proceeded with the setting, liking the rustic dimpled look the setting ended up with.

Finally, after almost 8 hours of work [making 's', double 's' and garnet rings] I had over 14 items! Into the polishing tumbler they went.  Here are the garnet rings. The other 3 will go to friends: Elisa of Scotland, Janda the Fair Maiden of Tran, and Jean of San Jacinto.

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This is the first project in the book Jewelry Making - Tips & Tricks, that I discussed in my last post.

The project is to make a ring from a piece of wire, not a wound link but a piece right off the spool or coil in the silver vault.

I cut four pieces of wire so I would be able to do a bit more practicing and see how consistant my work would be. You need a ring mandrel and a hammer for this, and also having a ring size measuring stick allowed me to measure the ring size before I hammered the 8 sides on each one, to see how the ring size grew.

Here is a picture of the result, after pickling and 4 days in the vibra-ora-torium!

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It has now been 6 months since I caught the silver bug. During this time, I have learned to solder, saw, roll, and texture silver. I have also been making stones set in silver for pendants, bracelets and chains.

So what’s next….

Take classes at the Revere School in San Fran. [I wish!]

Actually I am saving to take some classes at the Revere school, but until then, I went looking for a way to teach myself some more technique and improve my skills. So my search led me to several online book stores, jewelry suppliers and many other websites to read reveiws. [This is what I have been doing while I wait for my shoulder to heal]

I found quite a few books that detail the skills but I was also looking for a book that would give me some projects where I could use these new skills. Once I found several books, I asked my local bookstore if they could get copies - I actually want to look at the books before I purchase them. They said there was no obligation to purchase any of them, and so they did order 4 books for me.

A few weeks later the books came in and I must have spent 2 hours going through all of them. I then bought 2 of the book:

The Complete Jewelry Making Course by Jinks McGrath

Jewelry Making: Tips and Tricks of the Trade by Stephen O’Keeffe

Since I am now doing flexibility and strengthening in PT, and I can do limited silver work, I am starting with the book by Stephen O’Keeffe and I hope to work through the entire book, with a new project every week or two.

I will be showing each project in the posts to come.

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