(no subject)

[afmetalsmith]

OK, this is weird.

I know I said that I was not necessarily expecting the copper plating to go smoothly. Apparently my studio demons saw this as a challenge. :P

I have nice dirty pickle. I have my copper filigree with silver visible where the solder ran. I have various bits of cheap steel.

Now, in general when one introduces steel into pickle accidentally, everything gets Cu plated instantly, and there is much cursing. Today? Nothin'. So I turned up the heat and left it a while, and fished it out- still nothin'. So then I fished out the steel... which now has a coat of copper on it. WTF????

So now I have both a thimble- used for forming and soldering my plique one- and a cotter pin, both with a funky copper coating that I'll have to burn off so solder won't stick to them... and perfectly silver solder seams on my star.

Ye gods.

I suppose I'll throw the star into the tumbler anyway, because the silver will be somewhat less visible when it's all shiny. And I'll ask J if he has some steel wool and try that. I saved a couple of cups of the dirty pickle when I changed it... Maybe I'll just throw some scrap Cu in it and see if I can get it even dirtier...

Amazing, really!

Comments

Re: Filigreed Monkey Paw Container!

[afmetalsmith.livejournal.com]

That was perfect- thanks! I really don't need it larger- this showed me the mecanism just fine. I'm thinking about how to adapt it to jewelry... I really like the ties that hold the pieces together, both as depicted and as a starting point ofr similar but different closures.

This is really fascinating! Thanks again for telling me about it, and I'd love to do something based (loosely, probably) on the idea. It's very cool!