Metal Shapes, Enamel Colours and New Earrings

The more you do it the easier it gets {unless you play football for England that is.....} That saying is definitely true when it comes to using a jeweller's saw. From really not enjoying cutting metal with a saw and using shears if it was at all possible, I now love using my saw and wielded it almost like a pro {almost} to cut out some cute shapes recently.

 I'd downloaded a lot of shape silhouettes from a graphics site that had a 7 day free trial a couple of weeks ago and I chose a frame shape and a five petal flower shape to start with. I resized the shapes in Word then printed them out and stuck them onto the metal. The flower shape was a bit trickier that the frame shape but I got there eventually.

I domed the flowers and bezel set a London Blue topaz cabochon in the centre. It's the first time I've used the LB topaz and I must say it is a beautiful sky blue stone. Keeping with the blue theme I set turquoise and sodalite cabochons on the copper "frame" earrings and did another new thing which was to solder the hanging loops closed on the earwires on both pairs for added security.

Continuing with the shape theme I was asked recently if I could do a square version of my enamelled discs for a customer who had a necklace made from green enamel squares and wanted to make herself a pair of earrings to match.

The copper squares cut and holes punched.

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Counter enamelling done and the first two squares given their colourful enamel coats in lichen green

Finished! Mint, lichen and pea green :D

I have new colours! Thompson enamels from EnamelSupply in Denmark {not the speediest of service but faster than ordering from the US}

The new colours include opaques in willow green, mauve purple and bitter green which is a shade I've seen used and really liked but have only just gotten round to ordering and transparents in geranium pink and woodrow red which I'll need to wash if I want to use on top of an opaque. I also topped up with seafoam green which is a lovely colour and very popular. 

I can feel an enamelling session coming on.......

Copper Bangle With Ceramic Bead Tutorial

I've been meaning to make some copper bangles with ceramic beads for a while now. I bought some pretty pinkish and green ceramic beads a while ago and they've sat in my bead box patiently waiting for their moment of glory. It has now arrived!

I decided to photograph how I made the bangles in the hope it will inspire someone/anyone to have a go. It's an easy project and as long as you use ceramic or lampwork beads or anything that has been kiln annealed you should find the beads behave themselves during soldering and don't explode.

The most important thing to consider before you start is to make sure your bead hole is big enough for the wire you are going to use. The holes in these pink ceramic beads were a little bit smaller than the 2mm wire I used so I made them bigger using a round needle file. I tried various methods for enlarging the hole - using a drill bit and ball burr with my Dremel but they didn't do a lot so I stuck with using the file.

Form and solder a bangle as normal - I made the diameter slightly bigger than the normal diameter for a medium sized bangle to allow for the bead. Shape and texture the bangle to the finish you want. If you hammer texture leave a gap over the the solder join as it will be easier to clean up the join after resoldering. Use a saw to cut through the solder join.

Use your bracelet mandrel and mallet to shape the bangle so there's some overlap at the ends - this creates  some tension when you put the ends together and helps to make a better join for resoldering.

Open up the bangle sideways so you don't distort the shape and slide the bead onto one end. Slide the bead round so it sits opposite the join and manipulate the two ends so the join is tight. Soak in pickle for a few minutes. The beads are unaffected by the pickle.

I find the 2mm gauge wire is prone to moving as it's hard to get much tension to hold the join firmly together so I use T-pins to hold it in place. I put the honeycomb board on top of a fibreboard block as I can push the pins through the holes in the top block and then into the fibreboard underneath. This way is much less messy than just using the fibreboard block on it's own!

Keep the bead opposite the join and hanging over the edge of the soldering block at the back. Solder as normal keeping the flame near the join and away from the bead. Allow to cool naturally as quenching could cause the bead to crack. Once cool pickle and rinse.

File and sand the join taking care not to push the bangle out of shape.

Once the join is cleaned up you need to texture the area over the join to match the rest of the bangle. Use the bracelet mandrel but hold the bangle so the bead isn't in contact with the mandrel as you texture over the join. You'll probably find the bangle has gone out of round slightly as you've resoldered and cleaned up the join. You can use the mandrel to reshape the bangle but again keep the bead away from the mandrel. I hold the bangle at a higher point than normal on the mandrel so the bead isn't touching the mandrel and use my mallet to shape the bangle as I turn it to get it as round as I can. You can also tweak it with your fingers. Thicker gauge wire is likely to hold it's round shape much better.

Use a mallet and steel block to flatten the bangle keeping the bead hanging over the edge to prevent it breaking. This will also help to work harden the wire.

Use a pan scourer and washing up liquid to remove any grease from the bangle then oxidize in liver of sulphur. Clean up with wire wool. Tumble to polish and work harden. I tumbled these bangles for over an hour which didn't affect the ceramic beads at all.

A simple project but I hope it's proved interesting! My next quest is to find some larger hole ceramic beads to use with thicker gauge wire. A good excuse to go shopping!

Give It A Twist - New Copper Bangles

One of my favourite jewellery makers to watch on YouTube is Soham Harrison. His calm manner and straightforward explanations make him very easy to watch. He posts new videos regularly and I caught up with some of them a while ago.

One of the videos showed how to make twisted bangles using round wire. I make a lot of bangles in copper and silver so I'm always on the lookout for new ideas and I really liked the look of them.

They are very easy to make and basically involve annealing a length of round wire before flattening three sections of it using a rolling mill or hammer. You then anneal the wire again, fix one end into a vice and grip the other end in locking pliers and twist. The whole piece of wire turns creating twists in the flattened sections. You then cut the wire to length and make a bangle as usual. A really simple idea with very pretty results!

Here's a few I made......

...with a single twist. This was my first practice bangle with just one twist and the wire left round but given a hammered textured with the round end of the ball pein hammer.

A triple twist bangle with two hammered textured bangles.

Triple twist bangles that I will be selling singly.

I'm currently in the middle of making a pair of copper twist hoop earrings with one twisted section at the bottom. You can see I'm really getting into the twist thing! I'll photograph those as soon as they're finished.

I'm also very pleased to announce that I've finally worked out how to use locking pliers correctly. I always thought you had to tighten the screw all the way for them to work and then wondered why they didn't grip anything properly when I did it that way. Now I know you tighten the screw just enough to be able to squeeze the handles closed and then they will grip things perfectly! {I had to watch a video on YouTube to figure that one out, oh dear :D}