Finally got some new things posted

Organizing, shifting, changing, adapting - I think that's what business is truly about. I had a good look in the shop and I can see the nose jewellery is taking over, and I still have more designs in my head. I really love doing them so I think (I'm pretty sure) that I'm going to move most of them over to a shop that is fully dedicated to nose jewellery to give them the attention they deserve. I'm musing over banners, logos and colour schemes even as I type.

I was really busy with a visit from my brother and his family so I didn't do a lot of updating over the last few days; merely keeping up with orders coming in and communication with customers. Now I'm back in full swing and posted two really lovely things today.

I was absolutely THRILLED that someone contacted me who had read my blog and had some questions about fusing sterling silver. Keep it up readers! :)

Works in Progress

I thought I'd start out with a view of my studio bench. This is where most of my fabrication takes place, and as you can see, I like to have everything nearby and on hand. It looks a little messy, but oh well, it works for me.

On the bench itself you can see the brick where I like to fuse and solder things, the torch to the left, a big cup of water to dunk things into to cool them off - I don't like to wait - flux, paintbrushes to apply it, small tools, etc. At the back of the bench is the shelf with my metal supply, and to the left, the containers that hold a lot of my beads. What you can't see is the table to the right where I keep my pickle pot, fire extinguisher, oxidizing station, and a bit of clear table space. On the floor is my lap tray where I do finer work that requires no torch. When I'm doing that, I clear off the workbench and put the lap tray on top of the bench. A small operation, really, and I crave a larger space with TONS of work area and a floor I can really dirty up, but it's sufficient and I feel lucky to have it.

I've been a bit mesmerized with fabrication lately - fusing, melting, soldering metals. To the right is a photo of a fusion of my scraps that will eventually become a pendant called "The Boneyard". This is a term commonly used for scrap metal and vehicles and I thought it was a fitting name for this piece. I took a bunch of my leftover pieces, arranged them in a pleasing (to me) way, and applied some flux to them and then lit the torch. The pieces fused to each other, but what I love about it is that you can still see the origins of them - the earwire that didn't quite make it into a design, the wire wrapped end of something, the remnants of sterling left from cutting out guitar picks. The mind can see anything else in there too - I've allowed mine to wander over this piece many times. I oxidized it and polished the forefront pieces to add some depth and contrast. The lighting in this photo doesn't entirely capture it but it's strikingly beautiful in its simplicity. Here is a close up:

Another project I played with was making this unique, organic sterling silver and copper ring. It still needs some finishing and polishing and maybe oxidization in some places. I'll let you know when it's ready to hit the shop. Thanks for reading!

Fusion

I managed to fuse a copper circle the other day after many failed attempts. I wasn't really sure what I was doing right or wrong. Sometimes the ends of the wire balled up on me; an outcome I really didn't want. And other times, the wire simply didn't fuse - it got really, really black and it didn't 'become one'. I kept practicing and trying. Over and over and finally, I got it! A lovely circle. What I did was form the circle, overlapping the ends by about 4mm, and then I hammered it flat so the ends were really meshed together. I then fluxed the whole thing and lit the torch to it on a really high flame. Success! It fused.

Today I played with sterling silver fusion, which is SO much easier. This time I didn't flatten the circles, I simply used a dowel to wrap my circle around, and cut them out; again, leaving about 4mm of overlap. I positioned the circle so that the cut ends of overlap touched each other very tightly. I put it on my soldering brick (simply a heat resistant brick found in the hardware store - buy the ones they put into woodstoves or the bottom of a fireplace), and put flux on the whole thing using a small paintbrush. Flux is available from your jewelry supply stores and is essential for fusing and/or soldering. I lit the torch and turned it up fairly high and made the metal red hot, focusing the flame on the place where the two ends touched. The hottest part of the torch is just past the blue flame. I watched closely as the metal got all beautifully liquidy and voila! joined to each other to form a fused circle. I was entirely fascinated by the process. I discovered that sterling is easier to fuse than copper and I found that it just takes practice.

Thanks for reading. Pictured is a pair of earrings I made.

The bottom circle is fused.