My First Commissioned Piece

So this is my first commissioned piece. One of my friends had asked me to make her a ring to replace one of her other rings that had gotten damaged or something. I don't quite remember what the reason was. So any who I made her a simple band. By getting two pieces of wire and twisting them together, form it into the ring and  soldering it together, and then hammering out to make it circular.

Now don't be fooled even though this looks simple enough, it did have some problems. So the size I had to make it was sizes seven. I made the wire and and cut the wire to the length needed. I get all together and hammered out and it comes to the size 6 1/2.

So I tried stretching it, kept on hammering it, with that I got the size to 6 3/4. So then I tried sanding it with three different sand papers on the inside of the ring. I did three rounds of sanding to eventually getting it to size 7. I then polished it and sold it to my friend. 

Good thing is she loved it .

Locked Out

OK so today I did something really stupid. I locked my keys in my locker. Yup there it is pure genius right .
So I was telling one of the other students about this trying to figure out what to do. His idea was to take the saw that we use to cut  our metal with and try to cut the lock off. I t was a good idea I give him that. So we went to where my lock was and started cutting. It was around five minutes of continuous cutting that we finally made i tiny scratch. So were like" this is not going to work" so we decide to go get someone who knows what there doing. I ended up finding the manager at the store who had bolt cutters, and he was able to cut off the lock.

I was really glad that we stopped when we did. We could have been there for a while.

So the lesson today was, make sure to grab the keys before locking the locker and start of by getting the right person and equipment for the job.

Dreaming about Sanding

Well just as the title says " Dreaming about sanding " that is exactly what this is about.

This happened to me when one night a few days after I handed my rings in to be marked. I went to bed one night same as usual. Later during the night I end up waking my self (around 3:00 in the morning)  by having one hand flat out and the other hand making small circles on the hand flat out. I was dreaming about sanding. I couldn't believe it so once I came to and realized what I was doing, I snapped myself out of it and went back to sleep.

But I tell ya once I told my teacher about this she sure got a good laugh out of it, and so did I to tell you the truth.I hope you do to.

Domed Rings

         

DOMED RINGS!!

   Our second project was to make five rings. Five Domed Rings to be exact.To make a dome we cut a disc out and use some tools to make a flat disc into a dome. 

1. First like the bug we had to research and find different picture of domed rings to get our brains thinking of ideas.
2. Second we had to plan and sketch our ideas for our rings, and test out some of the ideas.
3. Third we had to put them together.

When it came down for me to finally start putting my rings together, I did something a little different than the rest of the class. For example some of the class worked mainly in silver. I did a marriage of metals. Marriage of metals is when you solder different pieces of metal together, like copper, silver, and brass.

I cut many sizes of the three metals. I then file the edges to make the pieces even. Then I place them on a soldering block and solder them together, making a sheet of the three different metals. I punch out a disc from the sheet and dome it.

This is the first ring in the line, it was made with the marriage of metals. Once the disc was cut and domed I cut out a another disc but put it on the bottom of the dome for a backing. When I was making the band I took  two pieces of wire and twisted them together. I then formed the band and and soldered it on the dome. 

                                                                        

For the second ring I made the band just a simple wire band. On top of the band I made three disc's is various sizes. For example there is a silver dome that is the biggest and the second smallest there is a brass dome and the third smallest is a copper dome. I soldered each one inside of the other, to create a stacked look. 

For this ring I made a dome that was made out of copper, and a brass dome. I cut each of the domes in half and took half of the copper and half of the brass and soldered them together. I made another twisted wire and placed it around the the new dome. I soldered on a bottom to the dome and made a wire band.

This one is the same design as the silver, brass and copper stacked one. But instead of it being by its self  I made two connected together with a U shape wire to create the band. The one set of the stacked dome is brass on the bottom, copper in the middle and silver on top. The second stacked dome in copper, silver, and brass.

This ring is made with the same concept as the first ring. By making a sheet of different metals and cutting out a disc. But this one is slightly different, because once I domed the disc I marked off sections and cut them off to give the dome an irregular shape. I then added a bottom to it and soldered it not onto the band itself but  a ring underneath. I then cut the top of the band off to make it fit the inside of the ring that was holding the dome on top.

Bugging Out Part 2 (Construction and Finishing)

Construction


After the whole process of planning and sketching. We are now putting it all together.

This is the inside of the bug, where the legs are going to be.

The legs are made out of wire. The legs are then soldered on a small copper disc and then riveted onto the bug. In the picture on the right there are two pieces of sliver tubing in between the three sets of legs.

 This piece goes on top of the legs and tubing. There are little tabs on it that bend over and match up with the tubing. I then drills hole in the tabs and folded them over the areas with the tubing, and then riveted them in place.

 I added a third piece on top to make it look more shell like. I did that by cutting out a piece the same size as the body, and cutting out a v to make it look more like the shell of the bug. I attached it by adding two rivets at the top.

I used the atena's to create the bale. I drilled two holes in the top of the bugs head, guided the wire through, and then twisted it and soldered it to the back of the bug.

To finish the bug I oxidized it and sanded away some of the black color to bring out the texture in the shell.

Bugging Out Part 1 (Planning)

                 So my first project in the jewelry program was to create a bug. The bug presented itself with some problems along the way but they were solved ( I can't say that these problems where easily fixed). But in the end it was really fun and exciting learning new things, the different techniques.
               
                 We ( my classmates and I ) learned many new techniques, such as soldering, riveting, creating texture, and thinning out the metal. As these techniques where necessary to learn to completing our bug.

Scenery

 Not doing to much today just enjoying the beautiful scenery.