Having Bitten off More...

...Than I can possibly chew at one time, I've reorganized some priorities to bring you the process of making my latest jewelry piece.

We begin with forging the lower half of my necklace out of quarter inch copper rod as they are just about to be annealed again for more hammering.

Once I shaped and drilled the ends of the piece I riveted them together. Some how I always wind up having to rivet on top of a dapping punch since the pieces have just enough of a curve that a flat anvil or bench block won't work.

Because I learned my lesson with the Pac-man necklace about how rigid riveted pieces are the top half of the this one is a normal chain that I twisted into a sort of curb chain, which doesn't lay right with the rest of the piece but eh live and learn? Also notice that you cannot see the solder seams on the chain since I used a copper solder I got from the Rochester gem show. It's a lot like low temperature silver solder and actually flows with out using flux. It means however its easier to stick feed it than to use pallions. Still want to get more of it and keep experiementing with it though.

Here's how everything starts to line up so far for the necklace. Once the chain was attached and the clasp made and put on it was time to start adding the plastic.

I had to have help slicing the tubing since there are difficulties involved in running it through power saws. After that it was time to begin fitting the pins that hold the plastic to the metal necklace.

While I started working on the plastic part of the necklace the Nor'easter Iron Conference was happening, specifically they were doing their big 1,000 pound iron pour outside next to the jewelry studio. Such a lovely smell from the coke furnace, indeed.

By now I have the top and bottom circles fitted to the plastic rings and its time to start gluing.

Gluing even with some practice proved to be messier than I had anticipated but here are the pieces half assembled and filled halfway with aquarium gravel, some Monopoly houses, miniature dice, and random key knockouts plus tiny rhinestones.

Look at that glorious strat-o-sheen shine! Anyway, not only does the gravel make a falling water sound it looks a lot like flood water especially with houses floating in it. The dice represents the chance of rain since the whole necklace is supposed to be a modern tribal attempting to summon the rain kinda thing.

Here it is finished! Photographed on the world's worst background in the vent where I glued it together with quite caustic acrylic cement. It's not as wonderful as I hoped and I haven't had a chance to try it for weight since I have been letting it to cure for a full 24 hours but at least it's finished and ready for a likely brutal critique.

 



And there was one more benefit to the glue practice, expect to see this piece as a background enviroment in CAD which the entirety of my Thanksgiving break will be spent doing in attempt to bring that project to fruition.

Non sequitur noise time, how about another Cyriak animation, Welcome to Kitty City?

Its amazing what some people can do with a copy of Photoshop, After Effects, and Fruity Loops while I continue to look askance at Illustrator, but the Adobe Suite and I are getting along better now, thanks for asking.