Rustnstuff: Rings

Showing posts with label Rings. Show all posts

Friday, January 11, 2019

Sidetracked by rust, love and connections

I had planned to make four cuff bracelets today; but got sidetracked making a ring for Fiona. Whilst we were in Scotland we found a very odd shaped rusty washer on the street in Thurso. Fiona asked if I could add a bit of silver to it as a contrast and turn it into simple pendant. So I made a loop out of hammered solid silver which I had riveted into an oblong after I had put it through the washer as you can see in the photo below.

When we were moving a log as part of the reshaping of our task of creating a couple of sculpture terraces Fiona found a rusted washer that had fallen off a piece of fabric art she had attached to the post many moons ago. She thought it would be significant if the washer was turned into a piece of jewellery to create a link with the rusty washer from Scotland - like our two homes. But she didn't want another pendant so asked if I could make a ring out of: the washer; a circle of silver-plate on my work bench; and some form of plain ring. I had a plain solid silver ring that was spare from a commission quite some time ago. So I started with the bits below after spraying the rusty washer.

The pieces came together well I think.

I asked Fiona to model the ring - I think it looks good on her hand.

I managed work on the cuff bracelets but more on that latter.

Sunday, February 12, 2017

Cascading impacts and other bits including a new technique

I intended to create quite a bit of my Found and Formed earrings and pendants over the weekend; but the universe had other ideas.

Fiona and I discovered a bad smell in my garage-studio. We tracked the smell down to mould that was growing on the wall and books that had become wet. So this meant shifting a few biggish bits of equipment and a heap of metal and timber away from the wall. The problem seems to be caused by a blocked air conditioner drain pipe that is built into the wall. The problem provided the opportunity not only to clean the wall and dry the floor covering; but also to sort the metal and timber and to build a book wall from the books that had become wet.

As you can see from the photo below the books have created a new feature on one of the shady terraces below the house. We ended up doing a host of other sorting clean and fixing tasks but they are way too boring.

©2017 Barry Smith - Red section of the small book wall with mini-agapanthus that will gradually grow over the books - books are held in place by the gravel and the occasional iron rod hammered into the ground through the spine of the books

Another impact on the Found and Formed earring and pendant plan was a new request. I have been asked to convert a couple of blank silver rings into 'stylish time related rings' by adding copper and brass rod into the rings and also inserting watch cogs. Inlaying metal rod into silver is a job I have never done. I decided to practice on a bit of ring sized silver plated tubing I cut from a small candle holder. Using a small and sharp metal chisel I cut an s shaped groove into tubing. I then used a very small riveting hammer to hammer copper wire into the groove (inlaying); and then folded in the burred edges. I also drilled into the tubing and set a small cog at the end of the inlaid copper. I think I have a identified a technique I can practice a couple more times before attempting the real thing.

©2017 Barry Smith - Ring with inlaid copper and watch cog - bit hard to see the copper as it was hard to photograph the ring because of light reflections. The width of the silver-plated brass tubing is about 6mm

I made a bit of a start on the Found and Formed jewellery by cutting and drilling quite a stash of silver-plated tea spoons and other bits I discovered as part of the recent cull and clean.

There is still quite a bit of grinding and polishing to be done; but at least I have made a start; and the spoons etc just won't be hanging around.

Sunday, October 18, 2015

Rescue of art, polishing and surprises

The weekend has in the main been given over to spring cleaning our place - including my benches and jewellery studio. The studio spring clean has included finishing the polishing of some Daily Word bowls and some rugged rings.

But first the story of the art rescue. On Saturday morning Fiona and I were about to jump into our car and return home after a coffee in town. At about the same time we both exclaimed that we saw a trailer of rubbish going by that included a piece of art work that looked like it was inspired by Rosalie Gascoigne. We thought we'd follow the trailer and if it were heading to the rubbish tip see if we could negotiate to rescue it.

Well the short story is that we arrived at the tip just as the trailer was being given approval to dump the load. I was able to negotiate with the dump coordinator and the owner of the piece (artist Jonathan Wright) for me to have the work (I even offered to pay for it - though Jonathan said I could have it); and after waiting for him too unload most of his load I was able to return to the car and Fiona (who couldn't come on site as she had inappropriate footwear). The piece is about 1mX1.2m; and was made from numbers recycled from the same rubbish tip. As you can see from the photo below the art is at our place - we are not sure what we will do with it but we could not let it be trashed - it reminded us too much of Rosalie.

I have also spent quite a bit of time giving a second life to a trivet I bought in Townsville. Couldn't bring myself to cut this one up; and Fiona had admired its art-deco design

The Daily Word bowls are all shiny.

I also polished some recycled metal rings - they are all a bit rugged but I had to give them a life.

And I had another surprise when we shopped at our local IGA - the Lomandra design I created for the Waterfall Walkway and the Flow artwork in the store has been used on new signage in the store - pretty cool.

A very good weekend in all.

Friday, July 3, 2015

Recipients of giveaway and more lessons needed

Thanks to all the folk who checked out the giveaway post. The people who got their comments in the first eight were:

Irene Mac W
Jac
Penny
Irene P
Anvil Artifacts
Jo M
Judi
Annie B

If those folk can send their current mailing address to wbarry.smith@bigpond.com - the bits will be packed and mailed over the next week or so.

Fiona has managed to share her lurgy with me, it was quite cold outside and my word for today was gentleness - so today I decided just to do a small bit of art indoors - making a few rings from handles I had rescued from bowls.

The cutting and forming of the rings went well enough.

But as you can see from the photo below - the soldering of the rings did not go well. The seam split on each when I gave them a bit of a hammer with a tiny nylon hammer to improve the roundness - so not strong enough!!!

So there are more lessons required for me on the soldering front. Most likely I was just too impatient and had not cleaned the rings well enough - though I did pickle them and was them. I think I will get someone to come to our place and teach me with my gear in my setting.

Sunday, September 23, 2012

Preparations. people and new pieces

Friday seems so long ago; but fortunately the peace flags and peace weather-grams are still flying to remind me that it is only Sunday. It has been a big weekend.

Whilst only about 100 people came through our studio-gallery it was quite exhausting as folk were very interested and wanted to know quite a bit about what we did; and of course Fiona and I did share and did demonstrate stuff. And we did manage to sell a few bits and pieces - so all is good.

I managed to make a new tube ring before the weekend - see below.

Made a few more found earrings - couple of pairs sold.

Made some more leaves - sold a few.

And today between folk visiting, and as part of the demonstrations, I managed to make a "simple-classic cuff bracelet thingy".

So it has been another rewarding art confirming weekend; and also made us very glad to that we live where we live and do what we do.

Wednesday, September 12, 2012

Rings for Saturday

The first day of our Open Studios is on Saturday - no pressure but we do need too have a reasonable amount of stock across a few of our art lines.

I gave myself the goal of having about 6-10 rings available for the opening day. So I started a production line. Cut and anneal recycled lengths of brass tubing from old spirit stoves; and with two more annealings I beat them so that the tubing is curved outwards and them over on itself. I ended up with a handful of pretty ugly metal.

As I have mentioned in posts before - one of the risks of using recycled metal is that whilst it looks very similar it can be very different. I cut and annealed 15 lengths of tube from 4 different spirit stoves. I managed to get 10 useful forms as one of the stoves must have had poor quality brass which had a tendency to split when beaten

Quite a bit of grinding and polishing turned that into a handful of shiny bits.

And then the hard part - inserting strips of anodised aluminium without totally trashing it as I did the final fold and beating to get the brass to hold the aluminium in place. As you can see from the photo below I had moderate success - the aluminium did get a little trashed. I did finished one ring with no insert - I actually like this plain ring.

Maybe the solution is to stick with the wire I used in a couple of earlier tube rings; or put in strips of copper and silver At least with the copper and silver I can buff the scratches out. Oh well - we learn as we repeat the production.

Friday, July 13, 2012

A fling with rings on Friday

In early May I had a go at making a ring from a section of brass tubing and a slither of anodised aluminium. That prototype turned out reasonably well. So today, Friday - art day, I set myself the task of making one or more rings if time permitted. In the end, over a couple of sessions, I did make three rings as you can see from the image below; but I would not say they are a resounding success.

As you can see from the photo below the brass tubing, from a recycled fuel camping stove, does not look pretty when annealed and roughly beaten several times.

But in the end the rings have turned out ok. And you can see I experimented with a few different designs. The simple anodised aluminium; copper wire with stirling silver beads; and 14 gauge stirling silver wire.

So what went wrong? Well over the last couple of months I had forgotten: which hammers I used when; that I needed to file and polish the inside edge of the piece I fold over (can't file and plush the inside edge after it is folded over wire or anodised aluminium); and the lengths of tubing were a little too short to give me a decent grip when creating the initial fold. And of course I think I might have tried to do too much too quickly - but I think I was driven by the fact that Saturday and Sunday are given over to visitors so no art.

Still it was good to get back into the fine motor skills part of metal beating. The rings will still be ok when I sand the inside finger area to get rid of the irregular shape and give them a final file and polish.

Friday, May 4, 2012

Slightly sidetracked on Friday

Both Fiona and I got to spend the afternoon in the studio as planned.

I had planned to continue the production of 10 "In the Balance" pieces - wooden cubes balanced on an edge with daily words of focus held in a vee pocket that has a metal front. I had cut and sanded the cubes Wednesday afternoon so I was ready to go with the metal work. But that was not to happen. This morning's paper had a 'lifestyle' magazine that I would usually ignore but in flicking through I spied some tube rings that that had folded edges. On entering the studio-garage I was overcome with the need to see if I could make a tube ring out of scrap.

So the ring below was made from the inner fuel tube of recycled fuel stove and a sliver of red anodised aluminium from a saucepan lid.

But I did manage to compete one of the ten "In the Balance" pieces.

I was pleased with the ring - it was an indulgent creative moment for myself which I got a buzz from. I think the ring form has some potential - hmm!! will fit the making of more into the flow at sometime.

But the next bit of work in the studio will need to be those balance pieces as one of our local galleries has indicated they would like to have a stash of these for their stockroom sales.

Rustnstuff

Pages