After a frenzy of bangle making recently I had a couple of slow days so I grabbed the chance the make some new stuff. I have a long list of "things to make" but decided to go for a few pairs of hoop earrings with post fitting. I've sold a few pairs recently so they needed replacing.
I started with a couple of pairs in silver - a simple hammered pair and a flattened design with embossed pattern...
I oxidized both pairs but I think the embossed pair might have looked nicer left shiny... {will do that next time}. They do look lighter in real life than they appear in this photo.
I also made a pair of hammered texture hoops in bronze and copper. I'm liking bronze more and more these days. Grappling with the thicker gauges can be a challenge as it's a harder metal than copper but the lovely golden brown tones you get when you oxidize it then clean it up with wire wool are lovely.
The more golden brown tones of bronze.
The slightly more red tones of copper.
I made some "new" bangle designs too. I say new but it's not really new it's just a hammered texture that I haven't done before on a bangle. And I got to use my lovely Fretz goldsmiths hammer for the first time. I now know why they cost a lot more than some other hammers and why they are totally worth it.
And A Small Soldering Obstacle Overcome.....
Anyone who solders knows it can be tricky and especially tricky when you want to solder a tiny thing to a much bigger thing. Things melt. Up to now I have used stud post fittings that are attached to a pad. They make it easier to solder to the earring and can add more stability. You can still melt them though but I haven't done that in a long time. The last hoop earrings with post fittings I made had the post and pad fittings that I then trimmed as they were bigger than the end of the hoop wire. This time I decided I needed to just get over it and learn to solder the tiny posts to my hoops instead.
The tiny piece of wire that makes a stud post compared to the post and pad version.
Learning to solder the posts onto my hoops would be quicker, I'd have less finishing, if any, to do and it would also be cheaper. So I melted some solder onto the end of the post, positioned the hoop so nothing would move {very important} and held the post in my tweezers while I heated the hoop. Once the hoop was at the right temperature I touched the post to it and the solder flowed. It worked and the post soldered securely to the hoop. I just have to remember to move the flame away once the solder has flowed! I didn't melt anything so it was a success and another little soldering hurdle overcome. Yay!
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