stone, front<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

stone, back<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

It looks like rutilated quartz, and has an oddly attractive cutting flaw on the back.\u00a0 I thought it would make a nice simple pendant with a thin bezel, and that should be pretty quick.\u00a0 Unfortunately I couldn’t leave well enough alone and the design advanced a bit, but it was still done in a reasonable amount of time.<\/p>\n

Overall the idea was to have the teardrop stone balanced against a similarly sized and shaped bail, and to highlight the groove on the back of the stone.\u00a0 I felt that a visual center would be nice to highlight the pseudo symmetry I was trying to set up between the stone and bail, and a CZ would fit the bill nicely.<\/p>\n

\n\t $\"stones\"$ <\/a>\n\t

stones<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

I’m fond of argentium, but contrary to what you might see here, I work with it relatively seldom.\u00a0 As it happens in forgetting the box with my current project, I had also left my sterling behind.\u00a0 I had some argentium on hand, so I decided to use it for this project and practice my fusing.<\/p>\n

\n\t $\"stock\"$ <\/a>\n\t

stock<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The seam of the bezel was placed where the flaw in the stone was to help draw the eye to it, and fused.<\/p>\n

\n\t $\"bezel\"$
\n<\/a>\n\t

bezel<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n\t $\"fused$ <\/a>\n\t

fused bezel, side<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

You can just see how the seam lines up with the flaw.<\/p>\n

\n\t $\"fused$ <\/a>\n\t

fused bezel, back<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

There was no argentium tube for the CZ tube setting, so some was fabricated.<\/p>\n

\n\t $\"tube$ <\/a>\n\t

tube ready for fusing<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n\t $\"fused,$ <\/a>\n\t

fused, rounded, scribed tube<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n\t $\"tube$ <\/a>\n\t

tube cut to make a seat, that is one ugly cut, too<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The shorter tube was cut with a jeweler’s saw, trimmed until it tube was a force fit in the larger tube, and then the entire assembly was fused.<\/p>\n

\n\t $\"tube$ <\/a>\n\t

tube with seat<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The tube setting was fused down to the sheet, and then I tried to fuse the bezel down.\u00a0 After botching it, and melting the bezel twice, I soldered the bezel down.\u00a0 I do need to work on my fusing, but I also like to complete projects.<\/p><\/div>\n

\n\t $\"back,$ <\/a>\n\t

back, bezel, and tube<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The back was pierced out, leaving the back plate wider than necessary, and a slice was placed over the stone’s flaw to further highlight it.<\/p>\n

\n\t $\"pierced,$ <\/a>\n\t

pierced, trial fit<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

With the basic piece done, an appropriately sized bail was fabricated.<\/p>\n

\n\t $\"bail$ <\/a>\n\t

bail stock<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Which was formed via forging.<\/p>\n

\n\t $\"rough$ <\/a>\n\t

rough bail<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Solder was melted onto the ends of a short wire, the inside of the bail was divoted with a small ball bur, the assembly was aligned with some tension in the bail and heated to solder the bail on.<\/p>\n

\n\t $\"attached$ <\/a>\n\t

attached bail<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The bezel was trimmed to match the somewhat uneven height of the stone, and the inside of the bezel was given a light polish as this was the last time it would be accessible.\u00a0 I didn’t think it would make any difference in the final product, with the stone being translucent and not transparent.\u00a0 However, “I didn’t think … ” and “it will not … ” are not the same thing, so I polished it.<\/p>\n

\n\t $\"polished$ <\/a>\n\t

polished setting<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The point of the teardrop would have been difficult to reach with a standard bezel pusher, and even though the shop has a variety of different ones, there wasn’t a good one for this job.\u00a0 A cut nail, also known as a horseshoe nail, was ground down and sanded to about 400-600 grit to remove any corners or sharp edges while leaving enough tooth to lay the bezel down.<\/p>\n

\n\t $\"bezel$ <\/a>\n\t

bezel tool<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

One of the other students who was there who cuts her own cabs, and sets them, said I should set the stone freehand instead of using thermoplastic and an engraver’s ball vise.\u00a0 Since I had never done it, and didn’t want to look like a wuss, I set it freehand, and as it turns out I am indeed a wuss.\u00a0 The setting went well, but my left shoulder was killing me at the end from holding the piece.\u00a0 The bulk of the bezel was pushed over with a standard bezel pusher, and the point was laid down using a combination of the standard bezel pusher and the nail held just as it is pictured above in a closed fist while pulling towards the bottom of the stone.\u00a0 I didn’t think to get someone to snap a pic because, as I said, I’m a wuss and was way too preoccupied with my wimpy arm.<\/p>\n

Once the bezel was turned down there was plenty of room to set the CZ with a tube setting tool, after the seat had been cut, of course.<\/p>\n

\n\t $\"finished,$ <\/a>\n\t

finished, with chain<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The chain is an interesting thin sterling chain I got on closeout a while back.\u00a0 It looks nice, but isn’t very flexible or strong.\u00a0 For this necklace two strands were attached at one end by soldering them together to a jump ring, that end was carefully twisted while the free ends were kept separate by a friend’s outstretched hand.\u00a0 Then the free end was similarly soldered.<\/p>\n

In this way the chain strands are twisted and also twisted around each other, like a hemp rope.\u00a0 If the chain is unclasped, and held dangling by one end, the chain will not unwind.<\/p>\n

\n\t $\"finished,$ <\/a>\n\t

finished, with chain, close up<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Some of the residue from the yellow ochre is still visible on the chain.\u00a0 This stuff takes solder just like soft solder wick, and if a solder stop isn’t used the ends of the chain are rigid and inflexible for as much as a half inch.<\/p>\n

I like to hang a tag makers mark on chains with lobster clasps.\u00a0 If you put the tag along side the chain, and pinch the chain and tag between the thumb and finger, while pressing against the jump ring with the tip of the thumb and finger, it holds still and is pretty rigid making it a lot easier to put on behind the neck.<\/p>\n

\n\t $\"finished,$ <\/a>\n\t

finished, with chain, detail<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

As an interesting side note, I’m an idiot.<\/p>\n

The entire time I was designing and making this piece, it was destined for my girlfriend.\u00a0 After I was completely committed to the project, and had fabricated a good bit of it, I remembered that she is one of the few people who turns argentium black and purple when it is worn for only a short time.\u00a0 She wears it outside a shirt, however, and doesn’t seem to have any problems with it so far.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was helping out at the Creative Metalworks open bench sessions in the fall, and I had forgotten to bring the project I was working on at the time.\u00a0 I wanted to come up with something relatively simple so I might knock it out in an afternoon or two, while helping out other students.\u00a0 I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":122,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/userblogs.ganoksin.com\/jasondeck\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/userblogs.ganoksin.com\/jasondeck\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/userblogs.ganoksin.com\/jasondeck\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/userblogs.ganoksin.com\/jasondeck\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/122"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/userblogs.ganoksin.com\/jasondeck\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=64"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/userblogs.ganoksin.com\/jasondeck\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":104,"href":"https:\/\/userblogs.ganoksin.com\/jasondeck\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64\/revisions\/104"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/userblogs.ganoksin.com\/jasondeck\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/userblogs.ganoksin.com\/jasondeck\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/userblogs.ganoksin.com\/jasondeck\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}