{"id":141,"date":"2011-01-18T17:43:02","date_gmt":"2011-01-18T22:43:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jewelryartsinstitute.userblogs.ganoksin.coms\/?p=141"},"modified":"2011-01-18T17:43:02","modified_gmt":"2011-01-18T22:43:02","slug":"jewelry-arts-institutes-student-of-the-week-melissa-caraway","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/userblogs.ganoksin.com\/jewelryartsinstitute\/2011\/01\/18\/jewelry-arts-institutes-student-of-the-week-melissa-caraway\/","title":{"rendered":"Jewelry Arts Institute’s Student of the Week- Melissa Caraway"},"content":{"rendered":"

$\"\"$ <\/a> Congratulations to our latest Student of the Week- Melissa Caraway.\u00a0 This beautiful ring is a student project modeled on an ancient ring from Rome.\u00a0 As a learning project, it emphasizes soldering and stone setting.\u00a0 Melissa did a wonderful job of mastering both lesson.\u00a0 I though we would go over some of the construction steps.<\/p>\n

Our first challenge is to make all of our bezels the same height.\u00a0 I usually have students use their dividers and cut long strips of .015 fine silver 3 mm’s high.\u00a0 The finished bezels should be 2.5 mm’s high after fusing and sanding.\u00a0 The construction of this ring is different from normal rings because the shank is not made first and then the bezels attached.\u00a0 Each bezel is soldered down to a .020 fine silver backsheet strip that is bent after each bezel is soldered down.\u00a0 We score right next to each bezel with a fine sawblade. Each bend must correspond to the size you want the ring to be.\u00a0 Once we had added as many bezels as will make the ring the size you want,\u00a0 Melissa then filled in between each bezel with solder so that 1\/3 of the height of each bezel is filled with solder.\u00a0 This is what creates the structural strength of the ring.\u00a0 Then we solder the end two bezels together and commence cleanup.\u00a0 After all of the cleanup we fill the ring with jett-sett and start setting.\u00a0 This is an exercise in patience because there are lots of stones to set and lots of in-between bezel polishing to do.\u00a0 Melissa did a wonderful job with her ring and she came out of this piece with greatly increased jewelry skills.\u00a0 Well done!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"