Charm Swap Update

I am typing this week with a wrist brace on my right hand so I will keep my own words to the bare minimum.

I do have some really cool progress photos to share from Victoria with Experimetal. She is DONE with her charms!!! I want some suspense to build however, so I am only going to show you a couple of pictures this week:





Victoria says she has been a little addicted to working with leather lately. Wait until you see the finished charms. They are phenomenal!

There has been quite a bit more chatter regarding charms going on with swap participants lately. I can't wait to see more progress photos and share them with you next week.

Until next time...

Ask Auntie EM - This week we tackle the BIG G!!

By now I would hope you all had heard about the new weekly blog post here on the EtsyMetal blog. Ann Hartley of Hartleystudio and, Sue Szabo of lsueszabo , will be answering YOUR questions in a weekly post we are calling "Ask Auntie EM". EtsyMetal has over 100 members with vast amounts of knowledge and far reaching interests and capabilities. We figured if we couldn't answer your questions...someone on the team could! "What can we ask?" Great question! Ask anything! Metalsmithing, enameling, raising, stone setting, cooking, childcare, travel...you got a question, we probably have an answer! To ask a question, email it to askauntie@etsymetal.com. Who knows, you may get it answered next week!

This week's question made me snort out loud! We are going to refer to the asker this week as Ms. E to keep her identity a secret because she is asking what we have ALL wondered about from time to time, the dreaded G word...glue. Here is her email.

Questions from a learning Metalsmith..... I am a little scared to ask Auntie what her opinions are on.....well....the dreaded G word. Glue.

I have always been taught that epoxy and other permanent glues are a last resort for fine art jewelry when setting stones, parts and pieces. Lately, I've been having trouble getting my cabochons to sit "just so" inside my bezel, and they tend to rock around just a bit when pushed in the right places, and I've considered the G-word as a fix for this problem..... What's your opinion on glue? Where does it belong in the wide world of fine art Jewelry? Is it cheating, poor craftsmanship? Or is it just common sense and I'm being a silly stuck-in-my-ways purist?

Auntie EM has some very strong opinions on glue and I'm gonna share them with you. Most of the time when you mention the word glue, people make this face:



But that really isn't necessary. Glue has it's limited place and, once you learn to solve the problems glue solves, you will head your need for it off at the pass.

Most likely, there are two reasons your stones are rocking in their bezels. The first is fixable the second is more complicated. The first thing you want to look at is your stone. Is it flat on the bottom? when you set it on your bench block does it rock around or does it sit nice and flat? If it sets nice and flat, hang with me here...if it rocks you have a problem. Poorly cut stones are the bane of the setter's existence. Wonky girdles and big bellies on faceted stones and non flat backs on cabochons make stones REALLY hard to set, even for an experienced setter. My first piece of advice is to buy only good quality stones. Don't learn to set garbage, you will never learn properly and you will frustrate yourself until you give up. So, if your cabochon has a wavy or uneven back, you can try packing the bezel with sawdust to even everything out and then set your stone. A cabochon without a flat back will never stay tight in a mounting and it's not ok to use glue. Do you want me to say that again? It's not ok to glue it in, ever. Now, I know that some humongous big wigs in the jewelry industry use a dab of glue here and there. How does Auntie know this? Because she has had to unseat those stones and there it is, bold as brass. BUT, it was there purely as insurance, not as the primary means of holding the stone tight. Your bezel or prongs should ALWAYS hold the stone tight, never the glue.

Now, if your stone is of a good make and it's still rocking in the setting, I'd bet you have a little ball of solder inside the bezel that needs to be ground out of there. If that's not the case, the bezel is too tight and you need to grind some material out of there.

It is never ok to glue together components when you could solder them or rivet them. Ever. Never. Glue is poor design, poor craftspersonship and the easy way out. There are more ways to cold connect than I can count. There is an excellent book here with lots of information and ideas to avoid the G word.

So, if it's not ok to use glue to set a stone or hold a piece together, when is it ok to use glue? Pearls. Pearls should always have a dab of glue. You should use a 2 part 5 minute epoxy because it stays flexible and doesn't get hard, brittle and yellow over time. Even if you're bezel setting the pearl, use a dab of glue. You'll thank me. What if you glue that pearl onto that post and now you need to get it off? There is a product called Attack epoxy solvent that will dissolve the epoxy and not damage the pearl. It's horrible stuff so vent well and don't leave the container open. It will evaporate in 15 minutes. Another place where you could use glue is bezel setting a VERY tall bullet cabochon...this is the place for some extra insurance. Bezel setting a stone with a very steep pitch will require some extra holding power and glue is ok here as well. I have also personally glued leather cord into sterling end caps back in the day, that's ok too.

Since we are talking about glue here...I'd also like to add that super glue is an EXCELLENT tool to have on your bench. Super glue burns off clean so you can glue two pieces of sheet together and pierce both at the same time, you can glue pieces together and then bind them for soldering. The glue will burn away cleanly before the solder flows. It's also bad for brain cells so make sure to ventilate well.

I hope this answers your question Ms. E. Sorry, I think it's not the answer you wanted but Auntie EM has to be honest! Next week, Auntie EM will tackle sandblasting so head on back here next week. Do you have a question!!??? Email it to askauntie@etsymetal.com and we will try to answer your questions in the weeks to come. Until them, happy metalsmithing from Ann and Sue! See you next week!!!

“What’s New “ in our shops

Happy Saturday everybody.
I am very happy to show you our new entries for this week.


simplymega                                              Rebecca Bogan

victoria takahashi/experimetal       SCJ Jewelry Design

 lichen and lychee                                   lsueszabo
 
QuercusSilver                                           Michele Grady Designs
 
LivelyHood                                                2Roses
 
iacua                                                              betsybensen

We'll meet you here again next Saturday.
Have a great weekend !

Charm Swap Update

Time marches on and this means our charm swap deadline is getting closer and closer!

Ruby from iacua posted this update this week:

"I finally finished my design for Etsymetal's charm swap 9! A simple twig with buds."





And a quick little teaser from Virginie of VirginieMartinStudio:

"For my first charm swap, you'll all get a Fleur de Lys which represents Québec... I haven't finish my prototype but it is getting clearer in my mind... keep posted"

We all have just over two months to get our charms designed, created and mailed off. I am excited for the upcoming weeks as I am sure we will be seeing more and more hints, updates and completed charms from the swap participants.

Until next time...

Making a collet mount with punches and block.

This is very much like the rub-over bezel mount with an open back that I showed you here, but with an elegant taper for faceted stones only and produced with the help of a collet block. 

What's a collet block?...it is a steel block with tapered cone-shaped depressions and a matching punch, for stretching tube sections into cone shapes for your mounts, or as in this case for tidying up a pre-fabricated cone shaped setting. These blocks come in different shapes for a variety of mount styles, such as oval.

So, first I made my template and then I marked that onto my metal. I used aabout 0.9mm thick metal, which is quite thick, but you will see why that is, later. How did I get the template right? There are lots of methods listed in so many books on how to do this and they all differ. Here is the way I do it, which you can see in my sketch below;

You can see that I have drawn the width of the stone as it actually is, which in this case was 5mm. The two lines which I then brought down (that long "V" down to a point) define the taper of the mount, so a shorter fatter V gives a squat mount and a longer V gives a more tapered, cone. It's helpful after you have drawn the arc, to also add the thickness of the metal you're using, onto that too, so that the final template you cut out is the whole of the shaded section  and the extra bit up to where it's marked number 4. This technique works for me every time.

Next, I sawed out the shape and made sure that edges were neat. I used my round nose pliers to bend the shape for my mount around, until the edges met perfectly. Once you have a good flush join, solder it closed with Hard solder. After pickling, you get to put your mount into the collet block and use your punch to true up the form. Which hole do you use though?....well, which one does your stone sit in nicely that leaves the table of the stone a couple of mm below the surface of the block?....choose the next size of hole up from that one.

Now make sure the stone fits the mount. You need a couple of mm proud of the stone table (the "table" is the top, flat surface of the stone). The mount is then soldered into the jewellery item, again with Hard solder.

Now you need to grind away a seat for the stone to sit on, just like we did for this mount.  Here in the above photo' you can see that I have coloured in the inside of the mount with black felt-tip pen, so that I can easily see the mark that I have scribed with my dividers which indicates where I will be cutting the seat.

 

I used both these burrs to grind out the seat. You may find that just one suits you better than the other. Because I have Carpal Tunnel syndrome in my wrists, I find this procedure quite difficult and a little painful, so I tend to grind out a little too much in my quest and for that reason, I prefer to solder a constructed seat into my settings, as in this setting. In this case, I might make another cone to a slightly smaller template and solder it inside. Then I would thin down the top edge of the outer cone, so that it is thin enough to rub over, but for the purpose of this tutorial, I will carry on cutting!....

Further shaping was achieved by using a medium sized, fine flat file, to take the height of the mount down until it is lower than the table but above the girdle (the "girdle" is the widest edge of the stone) so that I have enough metal to rub over. You can see here that the edge of the mount is now nice and thin from having the seat ground down. At this stage in the photo, I still have to take the height down a bit, as there is too much metal to push over.

You can see the ring is now held firmly in the Ring Clamp and I am pushing the edge over from opposite points with my pusher, bit by bit until the edge is snug against the stone all around. Only then do I push any visible lip down against the stone in a downwards push, before finally rubbing around in one direction with my burnisher....just as we did at the end for this setting. 

In case you're not sure, this gizmo above, is a ring clamp and makes holding rings while you set stones a much easier job than simply holding the ring with your hand.

So here is the mount after pushing, but before burnishing and below you can see the mount after burnishing.

Job done. Do remember that this is just one way of making this mount, there are variations. Every jeweller has a different way of doing it and has tips to share...good luck!

Ask Auntie EM

By now I would hope you all had heard about the new weekly blog post here on the EtsyMetal blog. Ann Hartley of Hartleystudio and, Sue Szabo of lsueszabo , will be answering YOUR questions in a weekly post we are calling "Ask Auntie EM". EtsyMetal has over 100 members with vast amounts of knowledge and far reaching interests and capabilities. We figured if we couldn't answer your questions...someone on the team could! "What can we ask?" Great question! Ask anything! Metalsmithing, enameling, raising, stone setting, cooking, childcare, travel...you got a question, we probably have an answer! To ask a question, email it to askauntie@etsymetal.com. Who knows, you may get it answered next week!

Well, I'm up for this week. Ann has taken the last 2 posts on the very difficult topics of torches and fuels while I've been on vacation. We've gotten this question twice recently so I guess inquiring minds want to know..... Here's the question-

"Lately I am working with copper and brass more than sterling silver, and
wonder what kind of solder I can use for those metals. So far I've
used silver solder but get a white color seam. This is ok when I oxidize
the pieces afterwards but doesn't work with a polished finish.

How can I get ''colored solder'' for copper and brass?"

Well, I've got some suggestions for you as well as some breaking news (how's that for a teaser?). For this question, we went to our whole team to get their ideas as well.

Before we even get to the soldering, Mark Kaplan wanted to remind you all that copper and high-copper bearing alloys (brass) tend to get dirty fast and deplete flux rapidly so a good quality PASTE flux is best. Liquid flux doesn't seen to have the same staying power as paste flux. I wholeheartedly endorse this recommendation.

Let's talk about brass first. For larger pieces (like sculpture size), Victoria Takahashi uses brass soldering rods that are coated in white flux. These are sold at welding supply stores. She uses this with her acetylene/air torch.

I spoke extensively with Phil in tech support at Rio Grande and he recommends using a yellow silver solder. He says it is amazingly yellow and can be used for bronze, brass, and gold-filled metal. It is sold 2 ways, in sheet and chips. He says Rio carries "brass paste solder" but he personally recommends the yellow silver solder as a better color match. Here is the link for those inclined to use a paste solder. There are no "true" brass solders for jewelry but these sound much better than the silver line left by traditional silver solder.

Now let's talk copper soldering-
There are several copper solders already available on the market. Rio has one here. Here is another from Raw Treasures.

The problem with these copper solders is that they are not a great color match in spite of their claims. The resulting solder seam is a greyish color, not a true copper color. Having said that, I have not personally tried the one from Raw Treasures. They also do not flow as easily as silver solders so there is a definite learning curve and they require more heat.

One of the best ways I know of to deal with solder seams on copper is to "plate" them. Let me explain- just use regular silver solders and finish the piece as usual. Get some very spent (bright blue) pickle and put it in a glass or pyrex jar. The pickle is blue because it is saturated with copper molecules. Wrap the copper piece loosely with steel binding wire. Place this in the super-saturated pickle and the copper molecules in solution will copper plate your solder seams. This may take some time before a satisfactory color is obtained. Just leave it in the jar until you are satisfied. I keep a jar of really blue pickle in my studio for just this reason. This works best if you have enough steel in the pickle to create the reaction and that the steel is close to the seams you want to plate. This is why I use binding wire. Do whatever works for you.

Finally, I have some "hot off the press" news. The tech dept at Rio tells me that after extensive research and development, they have an excellent copper solder that is nearing release. Phil at Rio says it is wonderful and all the guys there that have used it are loving it. It flows easily, like silver solder and is a great copper color match. They are looking into the manufacture of it now and expect it to be available within the next 6 months.
So, those of you who like copper and using mixed metals have a fantastic product on the horizon!

Well, hope that answers your question. Happy metalsmithing til next week,
Sue

Please keep those questions coming to our new email-
askauntie@etsymetal.com

“What’s New “ in our shops

Hello again,

Weekend is here and I am here again to show you our new collection created this week.

Enjoy,


Rebecca Bogan                                       Panicmama Jewelry
 
Jen Lawler                                               SCJ Jewelry Design
 
simplymega                                             e5jewelry
 
Michele Grady Designs                       Silentgoddess

Lichen and Lychee                               Quercus Silver
 
Danielle Miller                                        2Roses
 
LSueSzabo                                               Gotham Atelier
 
Nodeform Weddings                            Nina Gibson Designs
 
NRjewellerydesign

I will be here again next Saturday.
Have a great weekend!