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Jan. 15th, 2007 08:03 pmI'm pretty pleased with my studio work today.
That hinge that's been giving me such grief is now soldered on, in all its component bits. I still need to add a catch and a bail, but at least the hinge is done! (I devoutly hope...)
One of my bottlecaps is close to done- the one that's adding a skin to a commercial version- all it needs is the stone set, the cap inserted, and the cap set. It is all polished now, though it'll need a bit of touch-up after the rest of the work.
The other one, that I'm making from scratch, is progressing. The screw threads are almost right; they work, though there's one spot where there's a bit of resistance. I re-annealed and will try to correct this before soldering it in. Its decoration is all ready for enameling, too. I'm waiting to enamel until the earrings I'm also working on are ready.
The earrings are coming along well, too. I've got 3 of the 4 mechanism bits applied. It's tricky soldering, since the earrings are probably at least 1000x as massive as the mechanism bits! I'm expecting to get to the depletion gilding step with them tomorrow or so.
I have also been playing with some new abrasives. As I'm sure you'll agree, there is nothing that gladdens the heart more than new abrasives! :) These are the 3M microfilm stuff, and are round and have a hole in the middle so can be used on a basic screw mandrel. And they are exactly what I needed for cleaning up some solder flow on a cloisonne blank! I'm very happy with them.
I may be teaching a weekend workshop on granulation this summer. Nothing's determined yet, but it sounds like fun- I love granulation!- and it would both take advantage of some of the granulation experimenting I've been doing, and push me to do more. :)
That hinge that's been giving me such grief is now soldered on, in all its component bits. I still need to add a catch and a bail, but at least the hinge is done! (I devoutly hope...)
One of my bottlecaps is close to done- the one that's adding a skin to a commercial version- all it needs is the stone set, the cap inserted, and the cap set. It is all polished now, though it'll need a bit of touch-up after the rest of the work.
The other one, that I'm making from scratch, is progressing. The screw threads are almost right; they work, though there's one spot where there's a bit of resistance. I re-annealed and will try to correct this before soldering it in. Its decoration is all ready for enameling, too. I'm waiting to enamel until the earrings I'm also working on are ready.
The earrings are coming along well, too. I've got 3 of the 4 mechanism bits applied. It's tricky soldering, since the earrings are probably at least 1000x as massive as the mechanism bits! I'm expecting to get to the depletion gilding step with them tomorrow or so.
I have also been playing with some new abrasives. As I'm sure you'll agree, there is nothing that gladdens the heart more than new abrasives! :) These are the 3M microfilm stuff, and are round and have a hole in the middle so can be used on a basic screw mandrel. And they are exactly what I needed for cleaning up some solder flow on a cloisonne blank! I'm very happy with them.
I may be teaching a weekend workshop on granulation this summer. Nothing's determined yet, but it sounds like fun- I love granulation!- and it would both take advantage of some of the granulation experimenting I've been doing, and push me to do more. :)
