Rolling Mill Textures On Metal

I had another play with my rolling mill last week using some of the texture sheets from Etsy shop Rolling Mill Resource. I used some sterling silver and copper sheet and soon discovered it's best to get organized before you start!

I cut the sheet to size and worked out which design was going on which piece of metal. I also tried a feather but more on that later. Most of the sheet I used was 20g/0.8mm with one piece of 18g/1.0mm and one of 22g/0.6mm.

I've read that you should do a dead pass of the metal through the rolling mill with the gap the same size as the metal and texturing item. I'm not sure what this is supposed to achieve but I don't bother doing it. Judging the correct size of gap between the rollers is a trial and error thing that you discover by setting the gap then starting to roll the metal through. If there's too much resistance you make the gap bigger until there's just enough resistance to roll the metal through without giving yourself a hernia.

Here's some photos I took of the textured metal before pickling.

A leaf skeleton using silver and copper to sandwich the leaf. This gives you two textured pieces for the price of one. The texture shows up better on the copper due to the lighter colour but the design on the silver was just as crisp.

 The spiral design was a freebie (thank you!) I do love spirals but didn't buy that design for precisely that (predictable) reason!

 I love these two designs, they came out well and I think the one on the right on silver is the nicest one yet.

This is a nice circle and diamond design on 18g silver. It came out very clearly. The other design on 22g was fainter which may be due to the thinner metal or maybe it's just that particular design.

The designs after pickling.

 The piece of copper at the back was done with a feather with not the greatest results. I had the rollers too close and really struggled to get the metal through! A lot of shoulder bracing was involved but I got it through eventually. Once the metal gets so far it becomes hard to turn the rollers either backwards or forwards so you just have to use brute force! Consequently the feather moved so I have two images. It did work but it's very fine and would show up better if the copper was oxidized but I think if I try another feather I'll use a larger one (and not have the rollers too tight!)

The pattern on this piece of copper was a bonus! I used it to sandwich the textured card to print on the silver but ended up with a nice print on the copper too from the back of the textured card. Nice one!

Most of the card patterns can be used twice which is something that surprised me. I expected them all to be flattened after the first use but most of them still had enough depth in the design to use again.

So now I have lots of textured metal to play with I had better get on with making new pieces!

Combining Soldering And Enamel

The need to make cute, brightly coloured enamel studs propelled me into the world of combining soldering with enamel a couple of years ago. I knew from reading up on it that it was possible to enamel and solder on the same piece but wasn't too confident I was able to do it back then.

It was a slightly embarrassing occurance that made me just get on with - I'd made some enamel studs with glued on stud posts. I'd used 2 part epoxy resin which was a job in itself as it set hard after 5 minutes so I had to keep mixing more up. The finished studs looked ok but that little voice in my head kept asking "are you sure you want to use glue?" I wasn't but didn't think I had any other way to do it so I used glue. I sold my first pair and merrily sent them on their way to Canada. A couple of week later the buyer got in touch to say the stud post had come off one of the earrings and the other was hanging off. I was mortified, apologized profusely and refunded her money immediately. Luckily she was understanding about it but I felt awful! I hadn't packed the studs well enough in the first place to withstand a trip to New Brunswick but it was the glue spectre that was haunting me the most.

I decided then I had to teach myself to solder posts onto stud earrings and to learn to combine soldering and enamel. My first attempts weren't great and involved the melting of a few stud posts, lots of sweating due to concentrating so hard and some swearing. I tried enamelling just one side of a disc and then soldering the post on last but that didn't work for me, I just ruined the enamel with the heat from the torch. I almost gave up on it but I hate to admit defeat and I got there eventually using enamel solder also called IT solder. Enamel solder flows at a higher temperature than enamel (and hard solder) so it can be used before enamelling and won't reflow when the enamel is fired.

I have used it to torch fire small enamel stud earrings with great success. The two fears I had before I did it the first time - will the solder react with the enamel (or vice versa) and mess it up and will I melt the sterling post when I'm firing the front of the earrings didn't happen and I've gone on to make several pairs to date. The latest were three pairs of enamel heart studs I made last week.

I took photos as I was soldering and enamelling the heart studs which I hope might be useful!

1. First I flowed some enamel solder onto the pad of the stud fitting. I prefer to use these as my hand isn't steady enough to hold a post and solder it in place and the pads mean you can sit the fitting onto the back of the earring and it will stay put as you solder. I made holes in my solder block for the pad and post to sit in to keep them level.
2. Copper hearts just out of the pickle ready for soldering.

3.The first four soldered together

4. In the pickle to clean (dirty pickle!)

5. Counter enamel sifted onto the back of one of the studs and placed on the trivet ready for torch firing. You can see the trivet is sat precariously near the edge of my soldering block (which is sat on top of an empty tin can) so that I could get the torch under it. I've since bought a tripod and wire mesh to sit the trivet on which will make it much easier to get right underneath with the torch.

6. The counter enamel finished on all six earrings. I fired it to roughly orange peel stage as it will be in direct contact with the flame when the front is fired and will smooth out nicely then.

7. Enamel sifted onto the front. I always balance/hold the copper piece in my fingers when I sift the enamel as I find it easier but flat pieces can be set onto bottle tops if preferred.

8. Not the best photo but hopefully you can see the stud set onto the trivet with the post sitting in the gap at the centre. The small gap where the three legs meet is very handy for this and helps protect the silver post from the heat of the torch. I place it there by gripping the top of the post with tweezers right underneath the earring and carefully setting it in the centre of the trivet so the post fits in the gap. 

9. The first two pairs after the first coat, just to orange peel stage again. I make sure to keep the torch moving in small circles to avoid concentrating the heat in one spot for too long.

10. Another layer and a sprinkle of transparent on top and they are finished! Some people enamel just the front and solder a post to the back with easy solder to finish. It seems to work for them but I found it either ruined the enamel or the enamel cracked so I prefer to do it the hard (right?!) way!

Some New Copper Earrings And A Sale

One of my New Year things was to start using up my rather large collection of cabs, including some cab shaped pearl beads I've had for years. So I made a start with these copper earrings.

I rolled the copper through my rolling mill with a textured card to give it a lovely swirly pattern and combined the copper with pale pink pearl beads and a fine silver ball. The balls were a total pig to solder on as they kept wriggling around and refusing to solder on the flat side. I have no idea why they were doing this but after a bit of a battle I did get them soldered down in the end!

The second pair I made used part of some really lovely sterling silver bracelet toggle fasteners. I remember buying these on ebay several years ago after ebay sent me a voucher. I can't remember why they sent me a voucher other than I was a seller on there at the time. Anyway I bought the flower toggle fasteners as I used to make strung bracelets at the time but never used them all so when I had a tidy up last week I thought they were too pretty to ignore.

I cut the connecting ring off them and soldered them to textured copper then pierced out the copper sheet in the centre and trimmed the copper around the outside to echo the flower shape, added a hanging loop and earwires and oxidized. I think they're a bit unusual looking and I'm liking the negative space thing going on!

If you visit my Etsy shop today you'll see I'm having a 10% off sale! That's on everything including findings. Use the coupon code "ooh lovely" to get 10% off anything you buy from 6 January to the 6 February.

I enjoyed a bit of a break over Christmas but am now back to it with jewellery and findings orders again! I'm hoping to get some time to make more new pieces in the next couple of weeks including heart - themed pieces for Valentines.
Till next time....... ♥

Lists, The New Year And Things I Really Like

Photo : Nigel Howe on Flickr

Firstly, Happy New Year to everyone!! I hope 2014 proves to be a good year.

Like everyone else, the end of the year makes me think about what I've done over the past year and what I want to do in the new year. It's also a time I makes lists. I make lists all the time as they make me feel organized but the start of a new year is the time for lists. I currently have two lists on the go: a "to buy" list......

and a jewellery "to do in 2014" list....

Click on the photos if you really want to see what I've written!
I've made a good start on the "to buy" list and I'm now waiting for lots of nice packages to arrive through the post. One thing I have come to realize over the past year is that I have developed a bit of a thing for stamps. My stamp colection now has it's own box to live in. I started buying them to use for etching copper and have also started using them to decorate my jewellery packaging. I use flower stamps and a "thank you" stamp on a tag I attach to gift wrapped jewellery and I also started using them to prettify the PIP boxes I use for posting jewellery in the UK. The boxes are brown and a bit boring so I now stamp them on the back and inside with various designs. They look a bit more interesting now!

When I was browsing recently for "stuff" I came across a lovely craft website called Sticky Tiger. It's a really nice looking site and you can find a large variety of craftiness there such as stamps (really?!), haberdashery, jewellery making things, papercraft and packaging. Their selection of stamps is a bit different from the norm and there are some at very reasonable prices.I bought a few new ones just after Christmas which arrived last Saturday (28th Dec). I also found a couple of sites that sell Indian wooden carved stamps similar to this one from Etsy shop Indian Beautiful Art.

I bought a few of those too from Rainbow Silks......well they were only £2.50 each! I'm hoping they will work well with Stayz On ink for etching copper.

I have lots of ideas for new jewellery in 2014 (see list!) Since I started making jewellery "properly" I've become a bit of a multi-tasking fiend. I can't bear to have nothing to do and often have three things on the go at once. I never got round to making anymore enamel cabochons so that's something I must do plus start using up the stone cabs I have. My handmade findings need an overhaul and those that don't sell well retired and new designs added. I'm already thinking about Valentine's Day and things to make with hearts. My strange new love of sawing and piercing also continues (strange because I used to hate it!) so some pierced design pendants will probably appear at some point during the year.

I also have my rolling mill to play with and a bit of tidying and sorting out to do so from where I'm standing I think 2014 is going to keep me very busy one way or the other!