Copper Bangles - Noisy But Nice

I made my first copper bangle at college night class a few months ago as I had some thick gauge copper wire and I wasn't sure what to make so thought a bangle sounded like a good idea. Here's my first attempt...

I soldered the coils on at home but before I did that I made a nice lot of noise at college hammering the bangle to give it some texture. Hammering's fine, it's just the noise it makes when you hammer a bangle on a metal bracelet mandrel! I didn't make anymore at college as I thought the hammering noise was probably annoying the others in the class......

I did carry on making more at home though once I'd got my own bracelet mandrel. The ringing noise created by the hammering on the mandrel really grates, drives my cats a bit mad and I'm still waiting for my neighbour to ask if I'm running some sort of foundry or something. I tried putting a sock over the mandrel with the bangle on top of the sock but it didn't make any difference and I just ended up with a sock with quite a few interesting holes. I shall persevere though and maybe wear earplugs as the bangles are proving popular.

My latest bangles are decorated with soldered shapes - leaves and ovals that I made from some textured and etched copper sheet.

They were fun to make once I figured the best way to solder the two shapes onto them. I've since bought some steel binding wire which I hope will make life easier the next time I make them. Getting everything in position and keeping it there when I was soldering them had me slightly frustrated shall we say! My third hand isn't the sturdiest and kept moving when I needed it to stay in position and hold the bangle vertically on top of the leaf/oval shapes. Hopefully using the binding wire will mean I can solder the two (maybe three?) shapes on at the same time instead of having to do them one at a time.

I'm planning on adding sterling silver shapes to the next lot of bangles I make. I checked with the London assay office and cleared up a subject I was confused about recently. I had been lead to believe by another jewellery maker a few years ago that any amount of sterling/fine silver on a mixed metal piece that weighed over 7.78g in total would mean the piece needed to be hallmarked. I did wonder about this as sometimes the amount of silver may be so small it would be impossible to hallmark it. I checked and the answer came back that on mixed metal pieces if the silver content is over 7.78g then it would need to be hallmarked, if the silver content is under 7.78g it doesn't. Which makes perfect sense and makes my life a lot easier.
So mixed metal bangles here I come! Soon.

Handmade Copper Bangles

Not usually something that crosses my radar being a committed earring freak, strangely I had a sudden urge a couple of weeks ago to make some bangles. I made the first one at night school as I needed something to do in the last couple of weeks that wouldn't take too long. I enjoyed making it - it was a hammered round bangle made from 2.6mm copper wire which I soldered three coils of thinner wire to.

 I soon discovered that soldering the coils onto it meant I couldn't reshape it. I used paste solder for the coils as I thought it would be easier but two attempts and some burnt blobby messes later I went back to sheet solder which worked. In the meantime the bracelet had been bent out of shape slightly plus it needed a good hammering to work harden it as it was a little "bendy" having been well annealed with my soldering attempts!

So having learned what not to do - I never got on with paste solder so why I used it I don't know! - I bought a bracelet mandrel and made a few more -

They are made from 2.6mm and 3.25mm copper wire and are textured with a hammer and stamped designs. Really fun and easy to make.

The twisted wire bangles were a bit more work. I rolled the wire through the rolling mill at college then twisted the flattened wire using a vice and big pair of pliers. Matching the join and soldering was a challenge - I discovered that wedging the solder in the join was the best bet as it had a habit of sliding round the twist as I started to heat up the wire. Thinking about it now pick soldering the join probably would've been a better option and even easier!