Skip to main content

More Bezel Setting Practice And Hollow Form Earrings


I wanted to do a bit more bezel setting to improve how long it takes me to do. I am getting quicker at it, really! I sometimes "waste" time cleaning/ filing/sanding bezels up then change my mind about what I'm going to do with them and realize I will have to sand them again after another lot of soldering. Oh well :D

I thought I'd try decorating one of the bezels by stamping. I wasn't sure if it would work as the bezel wire is pretty thin at 0.3mm so I stamped fairly lightly. I didn't want to risk stamping too heavily and the bezel splitting and I also left a gap where the join was going to be. I think it worked ok with these simple turquoise cabochon earrings.


I stamped in the gap I'd left after soldering but not directly over the solder join. I think the stamped effect looks "right" with the turquoise.

I'm currently practicing making hollow form pendants in copper and will move onto silver in the next couple of days. I love the 3D look of hollow form pieces - they look so solid but are lovely and light.
I made a pair of simple hollow form earrings in copper recently before I started on the pendants. Simple as in a domed disc soldered to a flat base which is then trimmed and finished.



The pendants I'm making consist of a frame plus a smaller frame in the centre which are soldered to a flat sheet on both sides. The middle of the smaller frame is pierced out after the first side is soldered and the edges are trimmed at the end. They are a bit tricky to solder to make sure the solder join is complete all the way round on both sides and around the smaller frame in the middle but I'm getting better and will post about them as soon as I've made a couple in silver.



I soon discovered when I made these earrings that it's important to make sure you rinse all of the pickle out of them. You need the hole to prevent the piece from exploding when you solder the earwire (or anything further) onto them but that also means they get full of any liquid you put them into! I find leaving them to soak in clean water and bicarb for 15 minutes after I take them out of the pickle does the trick.
I've also started using hard sterling wire for the earwires instead of dead soft and find it is a bit sturdier for this type of earwire despite being annealed when it's soldered and it worked out slightly cheaper than the dead soft which is always a good thing!!

Labels:

Comments

  1. LjBWednesday, June 05, 2013

    The earrings are beautiful!!

    ReplyDelete
  2. GaleWednesday, June 05, 2013

    The turquoise earrings are definitely "right"--love 'em! And I really like reading about the process. Thanks for sharing.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Orion DesignsWednesday, June 05, 2013

    It looks like you are progressing and your work is getting more & more lovely with each post!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Cinnamon JewelleryWednesday, June 05, 2013

    Thanks for your lovely comments!

    ReplyDelete
  5. jessememanWednesday, June 05, 2013

    Totally yummy! I absolutely love these!

    ReplyDelete
  6. UnknownThursday, June 13, 2013

    This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Jewellery OnlineSunday, June 16, 2013

    I regularly visit your blog as I often get something out of it however this is the first time I have posted any comment (I'm more of a reader than a poster) but I just had to comment on the cabochon Turquoise earrings - they are so, so beautiful - the color of the turquoise is very pure looking - nice work!

    Jewellery Online

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Your comments and questions are very welcome!
If you would prefer to contact me directly please use the contact form on my "get in touch" page.
Any comments containing links will be deleted so please don't waste your time.....

Popular posts from this blog

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 m...
32 comments
Read more

Amazing Enamel Effects

Buying a kiln recently has given me the chance to experiment with enamelling on larger pieces of copper and to produce some really cool effects. These effects happen when you combine different types of enamel. I usually use smaller flat pieces of copper for making enamelled earrings and have had some of these effects happen when firing with a torch but they are much more obvious when you use larger pieces. I made a few practice pieces which you can see in the photos below. This was flux {a transparent enamel not to be confused with soldering flux!} applied straight onto copper and fired until the copper was a bright golden colour. Then I added a layer of liquid enamel in green and red over the flux and fired again.  The lines and spots form when the enamel becomes hot enough to start moving and in this case the transparent pushes through the liquid enamel layer forming these cool lines and spots. The effect is better in the green liquid enamel than the red.  N...
31 comments
Read more

Embossing Metal With My Sizzix Bigshot

I must admit up until a few weeks ago I was vaguely familiar with the name Sizzix but as to what you actually did with a "Sizzix" I was completely in the dark! That was until I stumbled across a video from Vintaj showing how you could use their embossing folders with a Bigshot to create designs on metal ("metal" - my favourite word after chocolate!) I was really impressed and itching to have a go, I just needed a Bigshot........ I waited a few weeks then when the urge to possess one overcame me I went out debit card at the ready..............and the shop had sold out! So I trundled off to The Range on the off chance and came home clutching my own surprisingly heavy pink and black wonder machine. It sat on the dining room table for a couple of days while I waited for the embossing folders I'd ordered online to arrive then the time came to start playing! I started with some pre-cut 24g copper hearts and the Wildflower Vines and the Butterfly Swirls Deco ...
26 comments
Read more