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kalihaAs promised more pictures from my silversmithing course. I'm still working on my ring.
Week 2 - Soldering.
Soldering is actually a bit scary. We used a massive gas torch which was on the mains and trying to put the solder on my joint was really amazingly fiddly.
Unlike with PMC, our tutor prefers to keep the flame off the silver as much as possible and heat up the air around it - less chance of us knackering our pieces by accidentally melting them.
Of course heating up metal causes oxidisation so we had to 'pickle' our pieces in a solution of water acid (which was a bit scary) to get most of the yuck off. This is post pickling, the silver is a very dull colour.
Next, the ring went back onto a ring mandrel and with a leather-headed hammer we knocked some roundness back into our rings.
Using one of those silver cleaning cloths, we wiped off the white residue and got to work cleaning up the join.
Using a needle file and a hand action not too dissimilar to that body-popping move where you link your fingers together and do a wave action with your hands we filed off the join on the outside, first with a needle file and then with a really fine emery board.
Can you see the serrated edges around the top of the ring? That's was the emery paper is for, first I ground the ring using that rough sandpaper before moving on to this really fine paper to polish up the scratches the rougher paper had left behind.
There's my join (the shiny bit). You'd barely know that it had been two separate pieces.
Next we had to polish up the rings using an industrial polisher (that all buffed up my long nails). This was a bit scary because it was a) massive and b) I was worried it would rip off my nails/fingers.
And this is how it currently looks. The grey discolouration is an oxidsation that is under the top molecules of the silver and next week we'll be learning how to remove them.
My join on the inside is a little bit more noticeable. The square blob is what's left of the piece of solder.
Next week we'll be getting rid of the rest of that discolouration and learning how to planish (hit jewellery with a hammer to make a pattern).
I don't know how Sauron had the patience to make 10 of these.
And now I am going to watch Lost
Week 2 - Soldering.
Soldering is actually a bit scary. We used a massive gas torch which was on the mains and trying to put the solder on my joint was really amazingly fiddly.
Unlike with PMC, our tutor prefers to keep the flame off the silver as much as possible and heat up the air around it - less chance of us knackering our pieces by accidentally melting them.
Of course heating up metal causes oxidisation so we had to 'pickle' our pieces in a solution of water acid (which was a bit scary) to get most of the yuck off. This is post pickling, the silver is a very dull colour.
Next, the ring went back onto a ring mandrel and with a leather-headed hammer we knocked some roundness back into our rings.
Using one of those silver cleaning cloths, we wiped off the white residue and got to work cleaning up the join.
Using a needle file and a hand action not too dissimilar to that body-popping move where you link your fingers together and do a wave action with your hands we filed off the join on the outside, first with a needle file and then with a really fine emery board.
Can you see the serrated edges around the top of the ring? That's was the emery paper is for, first I ground the ring using that rough sandpaper before moving on to this really fine paper to polish up the scratches the rougher paper had left behind.
There's my join (the shiny bit). You'd barely know that it had been two separate pieces.
Next we had to polish up the rings using an industrial polisher (that all buffed up my long nails). This was a bit scary because it was a) massive and b) I was worried it would rip off my nails/fingers.
And this is how it currently looks. The grey discolouration is an oxidsation that is under the top molecules of the silver and next week we'll be learning how to remove them.
My join on the inside is a little bit more noticeable. The square blob is what's left of the piece of solder.
Next week we'll be getting rid of the rest of that discolouration and learning how to planish (hit jewellery with a hammer to make a pattern).
I don't know how Sauron had the patience to make 10 of these.
And now I am going to watch Lost
