End to the Hiatus 2

The other thing I used my annual leave day for was to make a set of cufflinks for a friend. Made of sterling silver with findings that I bought in Melbourne a few years ago and had never used - and I taught myself to make rivets, but I think that I can improve on my first efforts. The inspiration for these cufflinks was an old tape deck.

Hiatus is Over

After quite a long break of not being particularly productive, I've been busy out in the garage. One rainy day of annual leave, trapped by rising puddle levels I was working on a series of rings for my friend's husband to give her for her looming 40th birthday.Citrines are known as the stone of the mind with beliefs that a citrine held to the forehead will increase psychic powers, they are also known for their healing properties, helping digestive and endocrine systems as well as protecting from negative energies and providing clarity of thought. What a present!

The two larger stones are Golden Citrines and the smaller one is a citrine that I bought in Denmark a couple of years ago.

Casting

This is a walk through the process I use to make a cast ring. My friend commissioned me to make a ring like one I had made previously, but for his wife. I started with a slice of wax ring blank - this is a cylinder of wax with a hole in the middle (so you don't have to clean out so much when you size the ring). The wax I have has a flat top which suits the type of ring I am making. So first step is sawing off a slice that is going to be plenty deep enough for the finished ring.


Next I started to shape it - tapering it so it is wider at the top than the bottom - I did the majority of this by melting the wax against some heated metal and then filing to clean up and do the finer shaping. So here I have the basic shape and now I am ready to start the final shaping - at this stage, I don't know the finished size of the ring, otherwise I would get that done first. The final ring will have a series of concentric ridges around the width.

Next when I get the finished size for the ring, I can size the internal circumference as well as do the final shaping and finishing.


Here the ring is almost ready to be sent away to be cast - I did the final clean up with sandpaper to get a nice finish. Once it is all looking how I want it to, I send it off to Regal Castings who will make a mould and cast it - this one in sterling silver.

It is a pretty quick turnaround from them - I couriered it off to them on a Monday, they receive on Tuesday, do their thing and courier it back to me on Thursday. When it comes back from Regal, there is still the sprue from casting and the finish is sandblasted (to remove any traces of the mould).


There are a few small air bubbles and a couple of other small surface imperfections, but the final clean up with the file and then various grades of sandpaper see to them before popping it in the tumbler for the final polish.

New Update for New Year

This year has been pretty exciting and it's only just begun. Last weekend I set up my jewellery workshop in the garage and it is fantastic to have everything set up and (mainly) no have to unpack everything to use it and put it away when I am finished.

This update is about a ring I made about 18 months ago. It's original purpose was a wedding ring and it did serve this purpose for a while, but sometimes the best of intentions just aren't enough.

I made a wax model of my design using a tube of wax designed for this purpose. It is a really nice medium to work in - and quickly shows results, of course this is a disadvantage when the tools slip or you make a mistake!

Once I was happy with the model and had checked it for sizing, I sent it off to Regal Castings to cast it in 14ct white gold. Several days later it arrived back for me to clean up - filing off the sprues and a little tidy up. I am really happy with the final outcome and pleased it has found an appreciative home with my lovely friends in Helensville.

This is the final ring modelled by Andy:

Final for today

OK, last up, this is a ring I made just because I thought it looked really cool on. The piece mounted on the ring is a tube of sterling silver and sits slightly across the adjoining fingers. I really like wearing this ring and had to think hard about putting it in the exhibition, but it is still mine :o)

Finally, here are some earrings where I've fused sterling silver and copper. These pieces are light (the fused elements are less than 1mm thick), but I really like the play of the silver against the copper and the similarity, but differences of the two parts of the pair:

See what I mean by flurry?

Recently I have been working on a series of rings mounting salvaged glass. This has been an ongoing project and was originally intended to be shown at the National Jewellery Showcase in 2007, but stress and time pressures led to meltdown at a critical moment in finishing the bezel - it was completely finished, along with 10 of its buddies. I came back to this earlier this year and finally got it together with the bezel making, no meltdowns, no holes in the solder and fitting the random shapes of the glass I was mounting. YEE-HA!!

This ring is one of two I have made so far from a window-washing accident in my old apartment building - the window washers knocked one of my neighbour's balcony glass with a handle and it shattered all over the street leaving some really cool shaped pieces - the glass is quite thick - about 8mm and has a green colouring to it. I have been selling these rings for $120NZD, well ok, you can tell that is a slight exaggeration - I have sold one!

The other ring I have made so far in this series is from a car crash - in the street behind my apartment building, someone drove into a printer's window and I managed to get a couple of pieces of the glass the council workers missed in their clean-up.


I really like this one - I have mounted it so that it is like an icicle - could be kind of dangerous, but it's not an everyday ring!!

Exhibition cont....

Often when I am preparing for an exhibition, I am in a complete state of panic, trying to get too many things done in too short a time frame (all my own doing!), and in the process there are usually many melted things that aren't meant to me melted - more frustration!

But this year, I was determined to be more on to it and have made a concerted effort all year to keep ahead of my sales and have a decent sized body of work to show. In June in Wellington, there has been an annual jewellery showcase for the last 3 years, but the cost of entering this became prohibitive this year, so a group of us got together to have a fringe festival - consisting of a street stall at the bottom of Cuba Mall. Even a fine wintry day couldn't prise much $$ out of people's back pockets... we're all dreaming of a credit crunch Christmas....

I did make one sale, but it also meant that I was really well set up for the end of year exhibition. So in these piccies are a couple of bracelets that I have been making for the last couple of years - these are adjustable to fit different sized wrists and the looseness/tightness preferred by the wearer. I have only started making the square-linked bracelets this year - both of these sell for $80NZD.