Etching Silver Using Nail Art Stamps

So my love/hate relationship with etching sterling silver continues. I've tried a few times now and always end up with different results most of them not that great to be honest. I've tried connecting the silver and a piece of copper to a 9v battery and also heating the ferric nitrate. Sometimes the results are good sometimes not so good. I currently have an etched piece of silver sheet waiting to be reticulated and rid it of the mess that is the etched "pattern". 

I now know that using stamps and Stayz On ink just doesn't work with silver - the time needed to etch using ferric nitrate is much longer than etching copper and the ink starts to wear away after about an hour. This results in the pattern being patchy as the resist is eaten away and the silver ends up quite lumpy and course looking. I have yet to try using pnp paper. I don't know why but it all seems a bit of a faff to do. I don't have a laser printer so would need to find somewhere or someone to do the printing for me. The transferring of the pattern to the silver looks tricky to do too. It would by far be the most sensible way to go though so maybe I will get over my reluctance and just do it one day.

Nail varnish has been the most successful resist I've used so far so thinking about it a while ago I pondered on how to get designs in nail varnish onto silver. I'm not blessed in the drawing department so apart from doing dots, attempting to draw patterns freehand in varnish was not even considered! I did remember a project in Art Jewelry magazine from a while ago where the designer Dana Evans etched some silver using nail art stamps.  At the time I didn't really get it, the process looked complicated and I hadn't done any etching at that point so it didn't really grab me that much. But now it seemed a great way to get some patterns on silver so I researched nail art stamps and bought the stuff I needed.

This photo shows the metal plate etched with various designs, a nail art stamper (top right), a scraper and a WH Smith clubcard that I never use! I used the card instead of the scraper as I found it easier. I bought the nail art plate from Amazon - it's a Cheeky brand plate. The stamper and scraper came from ebay. Don't do what I did and order one of the cheap pattern plates on ebay as they are poor quality copies of the brand versions, the etching is shallow and the edges are very sharp and will shred your fingers if you're not careful. I still have the scars on my thumb. I spent a couple of hours one morning driving myself mad trying to get the stamper to pick up the design from the cheap plate which just didn't work as the pattern isn't deep enough. I thought I was destined to be a nail art failure! That was until I bought a genuine design plate and when I tried using it with the stamper it was so easy. I  didn't think the ebay seller of the faulty plate would want it returned with remnants of my blood on it (quite a lot of blood) but I did leave relevant feedback for a shoddy product which made me feel better.

So, how does it work? It's really simple - you apply nail varnish along one side of your chosen design (the one-coat varnishes are recommended or you could use an old varnish that has thickened), use the metal scraper or plastic card to spread the varnish over the entire design then press the stamper onto the design. The stamper picks up the pattern in varnish and then you stamp your metal (or if you're normal your nail).

I practiced on a bit of paper first and also swapped the nail varnish as the green one started peeling off the metal for some reason. You have to work quickly and have a supply of cotton pads/buds and nail varnish remover ready to clean everything after each use. It's a bit fiddly but I did get quicker as I got used to it. If you mess it up you just remove the nail varnish and start again. There are lots of videos on YouTube demonstrating the technique by people who have lovely nails unlike me :D You can't make metalwork jewellery and have lovely nails......

Stamped and ready for etching. I will admit I didn't think the nail varnish would hold up, it seemed pretty thin but after 4 long hours of being immersed in ferric nitrate the silver came out pretty well. I think my ferric nitrate may be on it's last legs as it is very cloudy and sludgy looking now. It might be time to replace it and find out from the council where I need to take the old stuff for it to be disposed of safely.

 

The silver after I'd removed the nail varnish and cleaned it with steel wool. You can click the images for a larger version for a better look.

It's still got a pink tinge from the nail varnish but that will disappear with the heat from my torch once I start using the silver. It etched pretty well and cleanly so I am pleased with it. 

The obvious drawback is the small size of the designs - they are about 17mm wide. I bought the "jumbo" size design plates but as they are meant for use on nails they aren't going to be very big. I think a bit of careful thought when it comes to how you are going to use the silver will mean you can make the most out of what you have. Which all sounds a bit cryptic! I like making small things so I'm happy with them :D

A Horrible Feeling - Having My Debit Card Cloned

Image : Community Friend/Flickr 

I found out yesterday that someone had recently cloned my debit card and was using it to top up their mobile phones. What a horrible feeling! It's the first time it's ever happened to me and I felt really angry that someone could do something so despicable. I also felt slightly panicky at the thought of my account being emptied before my eyes.

I only found out when I had a phone call from Cookson Gold saying payment had been declined for an order I'd just placed. I tried to pay again and it was declined again so I checked my account online and saw the five payments taken out without my knowledge. Just small amounts that they must have hoped I wouldn't notice but I think the bank had put a stop to any more debit payments as it must have flagged up as suspicious at this point. It happened once before but that time it was me on a bit of a spending spree and the hold put on my account was lifted after I made a phone call :D

I rang the bank and eventually, after battling with an automated "thing" that didn't recognize my voice, then speaking to a real person, who put me through to another real person who asked if I banked with them -  "yes, obviously" (otherwise why would I be ringing you?) I was put through to someone who checked it wasn't me making the payments to EE T Mobile and O2. I was feeling a little bit frustrated at this point although I understand why they have to double check.

Things were sorted eventually and my card was cancelled and the money refunded within a couple of hours so apart from being without a debit card for a few days until the new one arrives everything is ok now. Thank you the nice man from the fraud department. I do feel a bit lost without my bit of bendy plastic though.......

Now I'm just trying to figure out how it happened. Having my card cloned at a cash point is the most likely explanation but I haven't used one for at least a couple of weeks plus I would've thought they would take larger amounts of money out of the account rather than topping up their phones for £10 and £20 at a time. In shops I usually put the card in the machine myself although I'm not that vigilant at covering up the keyboard when I type in my pin. I'm thinking that it may have been from an online payment where the card number and security code are given but paying online is supposed to be safe. I am baffled but it has made me think that I need to be a bit more vigilant from now on.

Craft Storage - It's A Beautiful Thing

I recently decided to revamp the storage boxes I keep my small jewellery making tools and supplies in. If you are anything like me and struggle to make jewellery in a room that is meant for other uses - the dining room and kitchen in other words - instead of having one of those wonderful workrooms/studios/sheds where you can spread things out, you probably get how important having enough storage space is. The dining room table was only used rarely anyway before I started taking over and now isn't used to eat off at all, just for cats to sit on and things to get dumped on to be put away "later".

This is what I had previously...... 

Perfectly good reinforced cardboard drawers but they were starting to get a bit tatty and they just weren't big enough! As you can see I have stuff everywhere, little bits of stuff and big bits of stuff that does start to get untidy and annoying after a while. Bear in mind the photo was taken when I'd tidied up and not when I was in the middle of making something. Then it would be a mass of tools, sand paper, files and bits of metal and metal dust everywhere!

I can't just spread out as it's a through room to the kitchen so I don't have a door to shut and hide the mess from people. I've already aquired one of the kitchen cupboards for my soldering and enamelling tools and supplies plus a cupboard in the sideboard for "stuff" so I definitely needed to sort my worktable space and invest in more nice drawers :D

I found the wooden six drawer boxes on ebay. They are similar to the Ikea drawers but better quality as they are 100% wood and not part hardboard. I also bought a different shaped six drawer Ikea box also on ebay.

After a quick sand I got my beloved stamps and Stayz On ink out and decorated the drawers.

The boxes were then stained and oiled with Danish Oil. I could've left them plain pine I suppose but I think they look so much better and more expensive when they are stained.

I did manage to mess up one of the stamps........... bottom row 2nd from the right....................

And here is the end result, everything moved over to the new boxes but I do still need to do a bit more sorting out. The brown three drawer thing on top that is full of cabs and bezel wire will be moved eventually and I rediscovered all those "useful" bits of metal and wire you keep, some of them from three years ago, that I didn't want to throw away but didn't know what to do with at the time and shoved into a drawer/bag/little pot that I now wonder what on earth I was thinking and know exactly what to do with. Throw gleefully into the bin.

Oh my God look at all those beautiful drawers I can put stuff in.

I need to stop pretending to be an artist and get rid of the paintbrushes though.................

Copper Bangles with Added Tricky Bits

Why make simple copper bangles when you can make "tricky" copper bangles? That's tricky to me anyway, other people would probably find them super simple! I'm talking about copper bangles with five small sterling silver concave discs soldered to the outside. Not hard to make just tricky.

I wanted to combine copper and silver as I love the look of the two metals together. The fiddly bit was the soldering of the silver discs to the outside of the copper bangles. I wanted then evenly spaced and was about to Google how to divide a circle into five parts when I realized I know how to do this already - just remember the length of wire you used for the bangles and divide by five!

After quite a lot of faffing about with my third hand and my fibre board soldering block (and swearing, mustn't forget that) I got the first disc soldered to the first bangle. Only 14 more to go. I had to pickle in between each soldering too which made it quite a laborious process but I got a little production line going in the end and managed to get the bangles finished with a big sigh of relief.

The main problem I have is that my reverse action tweezers I use with the third hand don't have a very good grip so things tend to move just when I don't want them to. I'm not sure what to do to sort this. If I could find some that had a firm grip I could possibly hold the bangle upright myself in the tweezers whilst I solder.

I recently bought another version of a third hand which looked a lot more sturdy. It has two grippers - for want of a better word - and it's own small soldering block in between. The grips seemed a lot sturdier when I first got it (after I tightened up all the screws about three times), but when I tried it with the bangles I found it even more awkward to use to be honest! It was hard to position and get it to stay in position. Oh well. It's the cheap version so that's probably why. I almost set fire to the rubber that covers the small feet underneath it too. I wondered what the funny smell was........

I also made some more twisted wire bangles with some of the wire I twisted at college earlier this year. These are great to make. The only fiddly bit is matching up the ends. I normally pick solder the join on bangles now as I find it a lot easier and quicker than chasing small bits of solder around when the flux bubbles, especially on twisted wire!

If anyone can help me out with suggestions for tweezers I can use to hold metal as I'm soldering that have a firmer grip than the wooden handle reverse action tweezers that are widely available then please do leave a comment!