I was asked to donate a piece to a charity auction being held in honor of Canada’s National Aboriginal Day to benefit Aboriginal Law Students. After some thought, I settled on a Raven and Sun design. The Raven and Sun story always has seemed to me to be an excellent story about gaining wisdom, which is my hope for the Law Students.
I thought I’d share some of the process for making this pendant, which is engraved and pierced. I began of course, with a sketch, which sort of reminds me of a Sheriff’s badge from the old west…and had me worried the end piece would look like a toy, but I went ahead anyways, nothing like procrastination to force a design. As you can see, I placed the nearly finished pendant beside the sketch when I took the photo.
Next I prepped the metal for engraving and piercing. I cover the surface with Chinese white pigment, and then use a sharpie to draw my design. I was playing around with ideas to determine where I’d pierce by blacking out areas with the sharpie. To hold the pendant while engraving I use green chasing compound set onto a giant wooden disc, which I mount in a graver block.
After drawing the design, I did my engraving. This is my favorite part. 🙂
At this point, I soak the chasing compound off in alcohol, and domed the pendant before piercing it. I have done this in the other order before, but that tends to result in buckled parts when doming. Which we all know leads to swearing…
I then polished and made the little leather necklace to finish off the pendant.
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