People who are interested in making jewelry come into the shop and see me playing with fire, hammering, or using a jeweler’s saw. Or else, they just don’t see me at the bench. So, they get the idea that making jewelry is all playing with fire or cool tools. But really, it takes a lot of work to get to the point where I light the torch, and when you don’t see me at the bench, I’m really doing the brunt of the work.
Summer Vines Pendant: Sterling silver, prasiolite, and an anthill garnet on a hand-fabricated chain; 16.5"; pendant is 71.6MM wide x 58.5MM tall. Hand fabricated.
I have to sketch, measure the stones, get the materials ready, pour the ingots, pull the wire, re-sketch, think, imagine, and re-sketch. Maybe I don’t have to do all of the preliminary sketches, but I like to fine tune everything. I always start off with very rough sketches, maybe imagining wild combinations of stones, work out a relationship between the vines and the leaves and flowers, textures, and fine tune how it all balances, and then refine.
Then there is making all of the parts, measuring, and adjusting, building the setting to fit with the aesthetic of the rest of the work. Then making sure that everything will fit together.
Then I put it all together, fluxing the metals, cutting and getting the solder ready, and then, and only then I will click on the torch, turning the propane on first, flicking the Bic, and then slowly adding oxygen, adjusting both into the perfect flame size and color for the mounts of metals that will need to be heated.
Spectrolite Drop: Sterling silver, spectolite cab, and faceted amethyst on a leather strap.
The actual time I spend soldering is seconds, fleeting to the viewer, but to me, I have to slow down to focus on that split second when the solder reaches its flowing temperature and pull it into the join. But, in that split second, I have to have the torch in my left hand and a pick in the right to better manipulate the solder.
Yes, soldering is fundamental to metalsmithing, but it’s not the skill that I spend most of my time exercising, unless… one makes their own chains. When I make chains I have to get the heat + solder + metals, balanced into the perfect equation and then repeat that balance over and over, on each link.
I know, I know, most metalsmiths just don’t have the time to make their own chains, and that’s OK. To each his own. I like the practice, and it makes that moment when I turn my torch on in front of people in the shop look very easy.
I don’t want to say that soldering is very hard or complicated, but it does take a practiced hand to make that fleeting moment of clicking the torch on and adding just enough solder to make a light-tight fit between the two metals into a perfect join. And, make it look easy.
Yes, learn to solder. Learn as much as you can from as many different people. Learn various ways to solder, and then practice. For me making chain is a meditation of sorts. With one fleeting moment of concentration after another, I can work my way down the chain. In a way, it’s like when the Catholics, Hindu, and Buddhist use beads to focus their minds in devotion. One prayer or mantra after another down the beads. I focus my mind on making a perfect join one link at a time down the chain.
A razor’s edge, a fleeting moment, but as with any act of devotion, much is required to get you to that point of meditation. Whether its with the flame when soldering, or that point when the hammer strikes the metal, or pulling the saw blade down the incised line in the metal, there was sketches, planning, details, forming, filing, and stones to be dealt with before I can enter that point, that moment of becoming one with the tool, becoming one with the work, becoming the work.
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Latest posts by michaeljohnson (see all)
- On Cosmic Success… - July 28, 2013
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{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
I enjoyed reading this. My kids think when I have the torch going it’s really cool and no amount of explanation will convince them that it usually takes me a day to get to that point. You put it beautifully!
I love the way you put this… making chains is still one of my favourite things. I have now expanded into lapidary and make my own stones for setting and this is very rewarding… but I love the meditative easiness of the shaping , cutting, filing and soldering of the chain links… all is right in my world for those moments. Nothing else exists but me, my torch and my metal…