{"id":82,"date":"2010-09-26T17:11:01","date_gmt":"2010-09-26T22:11:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jewelryartsinstitute.userblogs.ganoksin.coms\/?p=82"},"modified":"2010-09-26T17:11:01","modified_gmt":"2010-09-26T22:11:01","slug":"student-of-the-week-beth-sugarman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/userblogs.ganoksin.com\/jewelryartsinstitute\/2010\/09\/26\/student-of-the-week-beth-sugarman\/","title":{"rendered":"Student of the Week-Beth Sugarman"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a> $\"\"$ <\/a>\u00a0Congratulations to our latest Student of the Week- Beth Sugarman.\u00a0 Although my personal motto is “Too much is never enough.” this ring illustrates how beautiful simplicity can be.\u00a0 It also illustrates how it isn’t so easy to make something simple.\u00a0 Many students want to make rings with their bezels sunk down into the shanks but fitting and soldering often proves challenging.\u00a0 Here is how to pull it off beautifully.<\/p>\n

The first key is to solder the shank closed.\u00a0 If you don’t solder it closed first you will never be able to truly get it beautiful and round.\u00a0 After we make our bezel we roughly center it over the shank’s seam and draw it’s contours on the shank with a sharpie.\u00a0 Getting the curves right will be vital.\u00a0 I love using sharpies in Jewelry making because they mark without scratching and burn away completely in heat with no residue to interfere with fusing or soldering.\u00a0 They also make the perfect annealing indicator.\u00a0 For silver or 22k gold just scribble a line with a sharpie on your metal and start annealing.\u00a0 When the sharpie mark disappears the metal is perfectly annealed.\u00a0 Many jewelers tend to overdo the annealing which can damage their metal more than under-annealing.\u00a0 We saw away just inside the bezel marks. Beth’s next job was to grind and file the opening for her bezel to slide tightly into the shank. This is the part that REALLY drives everyone crazy.\u00a0 The opening must follow the contours of the bezel exactly and stay at a 90 degree to the rings axis.\u00a0 I always tell my students this is their golden opportunity to really refine their filing skills.\u00a0 We usually set up the ring in a table top vise so that all your attention can be on holding the file.\u00a0 You can do the rough work on the flex shaft with a bur but the fine tuning part calls for slower and more careful work with a file for all but the most adroit with the flex shaft.\u00a0 I suppose we will talk about Beth’s soldering methods on another day. Job well done!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"