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Dec. 3rd, 2006 07:04 pmI am definitely loving the filigree, although it's a bit trickier than I'd thought! I finished the hot work on my first piece- which is the star that is Project #2 in the book- and have mostly finished the soldering on the #1 earrings, too. (I plan to join the 2 halves of each earring with a jump ring, and want to solder them.)
I'm planning to put both the earrings and the star into the rotary tumbler once they're through with the hot work, for a quick and safe polish.
For drops on the earrings, I'm going to use some pretty "peacock" dyed pearls, in iridescent shades of blues and greens. The size is right, and I think the colors will be effective.
If I were still teaching reasonably-sized classes, I'd be tempted to offer one called something like "God is in the Details," covering filigree of various sorts and granulation- real detail work. :)
I've also twisted some wire for a larger filigree piece: I want to make a star tree-topper for my cute mylar fiberoptic Xmas tree in the studio. I wanted to use 20ga. (0.8mm) copper, but didn't have any, so I went with 18ga. (1 mm). I hope the scale will still work... I was planning to make it about twice as big as the pendant from the book.
My rolling mill was getting extremely sulky about being asked to roll down the mokume billets (now at around 4 mm thick), so J opened it up and took a look. Apparently one of the gears had gotten a bit rusty, so it's oiled now and that ought to help. The other problem is that the handle and its gears aren't positioned quite right- it was a relatively cheap machine!- so it's binding some when pushed like I'm doing. He says it's not going to break or explode, though, so I guess I'll continue! :)
I'm planning to put both the earrings and the star into the rotary tumbler once they're through with the hot work, for a quick and safe polish.
For drops on the earrings, I'm going to use some pretty "peacock" dyed pearls, in iridescent shades of blues and greens. The size is right, and I think the colors will be effective.
If I were still teaching reasonably-sized classes, I'd be tempted to offer one called something like "God is in the Details," covering filigree of various sorts and granulation- real detail work. :)
I've also twisted some wire for a larger filigree piece: I want to make a star tree-topper for my cute mylar fiberoptic Xmas tree in the studio. I wanted to use 20ga. (0.8mm) copper, but didn't have any, so I went with 18ga. (1 mm). I hope the scale will still work... I was planning to make it about twice as big as the pendant from the book.
My rolling mill was getting extremely sulky about being asked to roll down the mokume billets (now at around 4 mm thick), so J opened it up and took a look. Apparently one of the gears had gotten a bit rusty, so it's oiled now and that ought to help. The other problem is that the handle and its gears aren't positioned quite right- it was a relatively cheap machine!- so it's binding some when pushed like I'm doing. He says it's not going to break or explode, though, so I guess I'll continue! :)
