Fine Silver and Moonstone
Congratulations to our latest Student of the Week- Irene Knoop. This beautiful granulated ring is made from fine siver with an apricot moonstone.
To get the length right for her shank, we wrapped a wire the same diameter as the twisted wire we made around the joint of the finger she wanted to wear it on. She then straightened it out and cut her length of twisted wire. Only then can the spiral wires be made to the right length. As we have discussed before, the spirals have to be made with a minimum of plier contact to prevent dings. You can masking tape your round nose pliers to minimize dings but it will not protect you from compression marks if you are too heavy handed. I also hate the residue it leaves on my beautiful pliers. This can be removed with acetone ( AWAY from your kiln and torch ) but I still rarely do it. Once Irene had made two nice double ended spiral wires that ended level with her twisted wire we laid all three wires on a really flat non-asbestos block in preparation for soldering. We soldered them all together in eight places. Soldering of this shank is really more like tacking because heavy use of solder on this shank will result in a sloppy, flooded look. Soldering of twisted wire always runs this risk because the grooves in twisted wire act as capillary action on steriods. If you do not pull away the moment the solder flows, it will rapidly run along the twisted wire and fill in the grooves. As you can see, Irene did a great job avoiding these pitfalls. Her ring came out beautifully. Well done!
jeanettecaines
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{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
The granules were melted on a flat charcoal block, which leaves the bottom flat for positioning and the top nice and round.
How did you get the balls, surrounding the bezel, so round? The apricot moonstone is just yummy! The simple style of the ring is a nice compliment to the stone.