Finished pierced jewellery

 

Between things today I managed to get out into the Wee Workshop to saw the final two pendants I had scribed, drilled and brought over here from Maleny to saw - see opening photo.

This means I will have at least 7 pendants and 3 pairs of earrings for the Wee Pop Up Art Show at the Little Red Cottage in Maleny on 28-29 November. The five pendants and three pairs of earrings in the following photos will of course require further grinding, polishing and jump rings and wires when I get back to Maleny.

Some process photos of the sawing of today's two pendants follow. You can see the fine granules of metal cut out by the saw.

I snapped two fine saw blades in cutting these two pendants - every now and then the saw blade just jams in the cutting process - a delicate process.

Wee whimsical hoosies

 

As you can see from the opening photo I have cut a couple of wee whimsical hoosie pendants out of melted and rolled salvaged silver metal. I like the negative space form of the hoosies - particularly the one where I used holes in the metal created as part of pouring the molten metal and then rolling the metal bar. The top hole suggests smoke from the chimney and the bottom hole maybe a garden plot or pond???

Photos of the individual pendants follow - they are 4.5-5cm long and about 2cm wide.

Some process-progress photos of the piercing cutting work follow.

Cutting the hoosie negative space resulted in two rough hoosies - these have become earrings.

All the pieces still need to be given final filing, grinding and polishing - that will be done in the Maleny workshop. I'm hoping to have my priced jewellery for sale at our Pop Up Art Show at the Little Red Cottage in Maleny at the end of November.

Metal and stone

 

There hasn't been much time for making over the last couple of weeks. I have grabbed an hour here and there. Today I grabbed a couple of hours to finish off some small stones with inlaid metal; and sawed a pair of earrings.

Four completed stones can be seen in the first and last photos in this blog post. I say they are small stones because the longest is about 4cm. They are comfort or memory stones to be carried in one's pocket or bag. They fit comfortably in one's hand and quickly take on the warmth of the person holding them. A couple of the stones were requested by a friend in Australia; and I hope to make enough for sale at our Pop Up Art Show in the Little Red Cottage in Maleny at the end of November.

Some process photos follow. The grooves in the stones are freehand cut with a diamond blade in my side grinder - a task done carefully and quickly - one quick and light pass of the rotating blade.

A few photos of the pierced jewellery process and rough cut pieces follow. I intend to take the rough cut pieces back to Maleny and finish them before the Pop Up Art Show. The earrings and pendants are being made from salvaged metal - a mix of brass and silver.

As I said at the beginning a final photo of the four stones - arranged by Fiona on a drink coaster!!!

Saw piercing and inlaying metal in stones

It was grand to get time in the Wee Workshop (aka garden shed) today so I could experiment with jewellery saw piercing on a few pendants. Piercing is a fiddly technique where you cut the design into the metal using a very fine saw blade and a starter hole in the piece of metal. In my case I intend to use recycled silver that I have melted, formed in moulds and flattened by putting it through a hand operated roller mill. 

The opening photo is a close up of one of the pieces from today - a dandelion seed head on a stem that grew out of a piece of stoney soil. I was using the hole and organic formed edges of the metal created in the rolling process. I have yet to drill a hole for a jump ring and give the pendant a good clean and polish. The pendant is about 50mm long and 20mm wide - 1mm thick metal

Some process photos follow. The sawing is time consuming as one has to be careful of breaking fine blades.

I had time to use a diamond blade in the angle grinder to cut grooves in two small pebble from the cove. I have glued solid brass rod into the grooves. Both pebbles will require sand and then oiling to bring out the colour. Final photo is oft two pebbles and two pendants in the rough.

An enjoyable day in the Wee Workshop out of the cold and breeze.

Preparation for jewellery making in Scotland

 

When at the cottage Scotland I hope to make some pendants and earrings from the rolled recycled silver that I rescued from one of my batches of melting silver offcuts and objects that folk had given to me for recycling. See this blog post about melting the salvaged and gifted silver.

As you can see from the photo below of a couple of pages of my journal I had sketched out some ideas for making saw pierced jewellery. 

And as you can see from the opening photo I have scribed images onto the metal and drilled the starter holes at relevant points through which the saw blade will be threaded. I also gave the metal a bit of a trim and ground the sharp edges off. You can see the rough metal in the image below.

So the plan is that I should be able to saw the image lines either in the micro Scotland workshop (aka garden shed); or if it is too cold the work might get done at the kitchen table. At least I have prepared the metal to give this idea a go.

More preparation for the jewellery workshop

 

As you can see from the image above I had completed some examples of the type of jewellery participants in my Scotland workshop could make.

The following images enable one to see a bit more of the detail; including where I have cropped the image of the flower pendant and the slightly hull shaped earrings. 

The cropped images show how the pieces could look if participants use the hard nail polish to colour the pieces. I particularly like how the design on the silver-plate shows through the red polish!!!

I have also developed a two page document that introduces the participants to the tools they will use. As part of the workshop I will talk the participants through the two pages and demonstrate how the tools are used. Some edits yet to be done on the document!!!

I am pretty close to finishing the preparation for this workshop.

Testing tools and making examples

 

Preparation for my Simple Stylish Jewellery Workshop in Scotland in August is proceeding. We will be using salvaged silver-plated brass. Having done a plan and a design options sheet, I am now testing basic hand tools I can take with me on the next trip and making some examples based on the design options sheet and with the hand tools.

The opening and following photos shows the examples I made today

As the following photo shows I have cut most of the metal for the workshop. 

I'm testing a wooden dapping tool, metal punch pliers, a micro eyelet setting tool, diamond file for make the flower form and a vintage jeweller's  hand held vice - see photos below.

Over the weekend I hope to complete and assemble the examples including putting the pendants on necklaces and the earrings on earwigs.