Progress

Just a few photos around shop of new pieces in various stages of completion.  This first is welding an 18ky disc to a sheet of argentium.  The solder is on the outer ridges, I heat the piece from the middle and it all flows under the disc, forming a solid bond.

Once a disc is soldered to the sheet I cut off the excess and file it smooth around the edges.  Below is a Mokume disc being filed.

A collection of discs, gold, copper, mokume, and argentium.  

Using a dapping block and wooden dapping tools to form the domes.

All finished!!  Ready to become earrings and rings.

Making a Dragonfly Wing Ring

My wing rings have been quite popular, so I'm putting up a little tutorial on how I make them! I'm also including links to the tools I use, available at Ottofrei.com, where I get most of my supplies.

I start with a wing casting, which I can use to make either a ring, a pendant or earrings out of. These are made of recycled Argentium Silver, from an original model. The first step is to clean up the sprues and the casting finish.

Once the wing is cleaned up, I anneal it with the torch. Heating it until it's a medium brightish red, this annealing process softens the metal so it is malleable.

As soon as the whole piece is annealed, I drop it in the pickle pot. I use a mild Citric Acid, it's safer and cleaner then traditional jewelers pickle, this cleans off the oxidation from heating it.

Once the wing is annealed I can bend it by hand around my ring mandrel. This first bend is only a part of the way, typically I will need to anneal the piece two or three times to get it fully rounded to the appropriate size. Finishing the shaping with a rubber mallet, as to not mar the finish.

It's quite tricky to get it to bend without all the little wire twisting together. It took a few duds when I first started making them to get the feel down.

Here are a pair of rings fully rounded. The next step is to bake them in the oven, this process hardens the Argentium Silver so that it is very rigid. The baking process I use is 495 Degrees for 1 hour 45 minutes, for the strongest heat treatment I anneal it one last time before it goes into the oven. To read more on Argentium Silver head over to this site, argentiumsilver.com.

After baking the ring, the last step is the final finish, first done using basic sandpaper to get a nice flat finish. I do this by hand, old fashioned, but it does the trick.

I then use a Flex Shaft and bristle wheels to smooth the final finish and give it nice even brushed look. The rings form their own patina/finish over time, depending on how hard you wear them.

Check out the Wing Ring listing on Etsy for the final images!! Thanks for reading!

Light

I've set my shop up with daylight energy saving bulbs, since there are no windows.  Lately I find the lighting too clinical though,  but I found a bag of old tea candles, and my bench just does not feel the same without three of them lit.  I'm overly particular with my shop environment I guess, it's only temporary until we move again in another year, but it's my work space none the less!

Sidetracked

So my brother is in town for a little while, and the three of us went out ghost hunting. This was brought on by watching a Ghost Hunters marathon on cable while visiting family last week. The haunted spot we chose was an old covered bridge, where a women hanged herself years and years ago, called Emily's Bridge... She's been known to scream and damage cars apparently. While we're not sure if we saw anything convincing, I did end up with creepy pictures.


I did manage to get my shop all cleaned today, it severely needed it. Tomorrow I place a very large order for all the metal and stones for my new creations, I can't wait!

GreenEarthJourney

There's a nice writeup/interview about my work on GreenEarthJourney, along with a lot of other great information as well!