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.