Progress has been made on the ring.

A flat piece of copper was hammered and then cut into a circle.
That circle was dapped into a dome shape.
The the tree bit was soldered onto the domed bit, making a hollow ornament
A chunk of 12 gauge half round sterling wire was made into a ring band.
The top was then sodlered to the ring band and… voila …

the front of the ring

ring face soldered onto the ring band

ring from the side

I happen to be pretty dang proud of my first “real” soldering project.

Next up the finishing. In the end the top of the ring will be black and the band will be satin finished silver.

I’ve been working with wire the past couple of weeks. One fascination is how to use wire to capture cabochons. I bought a bag of small glass cabs that remind me of candy. By using light weight craft wire I’ve been able to create some interesting cages.

Here are two:

wire wrappings

The blue doesn’t seem to have enough wire wrapped around it’s front but it doesn’t shift. So maybe you don’t have to use quite so much wire as I did on the green one. Though the excessively snaky look is kind of cool.

I built these using a square of wire on the back and joining a much longer piece of wire with coils. The tightening the loose front wires by putting bends in them. Think tightening fences.

back of the wire wrapping

It’s all a bit of a spaghetti disaster while I’m trying to get the two peices of wire attached to each other. Maybe it will get easier with practice.

There is also the question of how to make the top/bail tidy.

First though I have an idea for making the front wires into a star…

I’m taking Jewelry and Metalsmithing 1 at the Pratt Fine Arts Center.

Our first project is a ring. The top is made of a piece of pierced copper soldered to a half dome. Below are pictures of the two tops that I made last week. The pattern is gluesd on with rubber cement and then holes are drilled in the copper so that you can thread a jewelr’s saw through it and make the cuts.

The first ones didn’t quite workout. The rays on the start just wouldn’t stay straight. More practice is clearly the answer.

moon and stars pierced copper

The second piece worked nicely.

tree design pattern

The circle on the front shows where the half dome will be soldered on.

From the top it will look like this.

the front

More next week when I make the dome and learn how to solder things that aren’t carrying electricity.

I’m learning to work with jewelry wire. Here are two recent (beginner) projects.

charm holder and charms, pounded wire leaf link bracelet

On the top a charm holder made of 14 gauge sterling silver and five charms. You can learn to make the charm holder at the Bead Club in Woodinville. It’s a very good use of three hours.

The second piece is a bracelet made of 20 gauge silver filled wire. It’s a variation on the Spiral Bracelet project in Chandler and Ritchey’s Getting Started Making Wire Jewelry and More. The original has a much tighter coil in the center and a coarser texture pounded into the wire. I prefer the looser feel of this one. I’m going to try something similar in heavier wire. This one is too delicate as it stands (sits?)

Also I promise to get some other colors of fabric for taking photographs. All this dusty rose is starting to make a little queasy.