Ghost Rider

 Howdy! I've got a fun piece today! I found a lovely little agate from Montana over at Handleys. At first I was all ho hum, then I saw it: A cowboy riding through sage brush! So that what I did, and here's how.

First came designing the piece. Getting a decent cowboy silhouetteis one thing, getting it in the right proportion is another! It took me several tries, but i finally got my cowboy and horse the right size.

 

Next came making the piece. I switched over to a  new torch setup in the middle of making this. From acetylene/air with a big torch tip to oxy-propane with a MINI torch tip. Well, I had some trouble getting it hot enough to solder up right, but I kept trying and finally got it. yikes, though, what a nightmare!

So I got the bezel made and all ready to go, and drew on my little cowboy

  

 I cut him out

 I was careful in my sawing as I couldn't add metal if i screwed up! But he turned out okay

Now one thing i did take into consideration was the possibility of the back plate tarnishing. I am trying to mitigate that by creating a fine silver layer (using depletion guilting) under where the stone sits. We'll see...at the very least it makes the stone appear whiter.

 I set the agate in and it looks pretty darn good. One thing I didn't realize was the stone tapers off by a millimeter on one side! so to get it to fit into the piece I had to do a bit of resizing. Anyway, it looks pretty good. The camera didn't want to pick up on it, but you get the idea. he comes out pretty clearly in real life.

 Anyway, That's my coyboy!
http://www.etsy.com/listing/83692954/cowboy-western-silver-brooch-with

Erikas Design Process

I make no claims to be a trained artist. Infact, most of my sense of design is purely instinct. When I work on a new piece i have several days of designing: sometimes i draw out the idea, sometimes i just move around the stonest themselves. I had a nice turquoise i wanted to pair with an opal, but i hade a bit of trouble figuring out what to do and how to so it. I did a small sketch, but it wasnt enough to fill in all the design holes. So I played with the stones i had until i saw something I liked. Here are three possibilities:

 I still like this one....

Ever so slightly different

But I went with this one. 

Now the question: where to I put the chain?

Tippy top?

Middle of the top?

Through the accent stones? IF i went with this design I would have to have the opal stationary-and my problem was I couldn't see how to connect the opal to the turquoise.

Finally, I decided to go through the top and connect the two stones with a rod....this also created lots of design possibilities. Big rod? Small one? Beads on the end? Gold or Silver? Though I almost went with gold accents out of nowhere i decided to use two rhodocrosite garnets.

Here is the setting waiting for the stones.

Finished piece. Well, almost, still needs a final polish but its not to bad for an afternoons work.

BTW This is the original piece of opal I cut that one from. I actually got THREE different pieces of jewelry from this one stone.

How To: Make a Set of Rings

Hello everyone! I feel like sharing a tutorial with everyone today: how to make several rings at once from wire. I used this technique to create my Stacking rabbit ring. I am using 18 gauge square wire, but you can do this with most any wire. You can make a single ring by measuring out the needed length of wire, fileing the ends, and bending so the two ends meet. Or, you can use a mandrel. My wire is soft enough i can just bend it around the mandrel

 Dont forget to use soft wire or anneal your stock before doing this!

 If the wire is too this for thick for bending, use the rawhide mattle. Strike the metal next to the mandrel-not on it. Tap the wire around the mandrel. Its best to have the mandrel in a bench vise, but it works if you prop your mardrel against something sturdy. Just be careful about leaving knicks in it, i always cushion mine with a rag.

You should have a section of wire that has been wrapped at least once around the mandrel, I wrapped mine around three times. Take that section of wire and saw it right down the middle of all the rings.

When you've sawed through you should have several identical rings

If you need to, file the edged so they are flush with eachother

Hold the rings up to the light: see how one of these rings hardly has any space between the edgrs, and the bottom has lots of light coming through? (You may need to click it to see the bigger picture) The lower one will not sauder well, the top one is ready to go!

So, you ready for the torch? Bs sure to flux the metal, I use brush on flux paste, but there are lots of options out there. Next, add the sauder chips.

Try to start with hard suader: it is the strongest and if you have more pieces to sauder on, you dont want it to accidently flow and come undone while you are working on another section. Start off with hard and do as much as you can with hard before moving the medium. Many jewelrs avoid ever using easy, but sometimes you have to. Just remember: it is soft and weaker, dont use it for something that will get lots of strain.

Dont forget to flux the chip, too, or they will oxidize on the outside and refuse to flow!

Turn up the heat! Gently heat up the rings to burn off the water in the flux. If you heat too quickly it will bubbly and possibly toss aside your sauder chip. Once youve got the flux dry, heat the piece. You have two ways of telling when the sauder will flow: When the color of the piece starts to turn a a LIGHT red, hit the area with the sauder with the flame. Or, with paste flux when it moves from gross sticky brown to clear you should be ready to flow. Sauder flows to where it is hot and it doesnt jump gaps, so make sure your ring is nice and hot on both sides of the joint.

Let your pieces cool before going into the pickle pot. I have a bit of a odd set-up: I have a block of marble under a saudering board with a charcol block on top. Nope, it doesnt spin, dont have pumice, or a screen....or alot of things. I'm makeshift.

Drop them in the pickle pot, and you've got yourself some rings!

And, but wait, they are kinda a wonky shape, eh?  Wake out your mandrel again and lightly tap the rings down the mandrel with a rawhide mallet.

This same technique can be used to size the rings, if one is a little too small you can stretch it out by gently hammering it down the mandrel. Once you have your rings round and the right size, file off the extra sauder from the joints.

Once thats done, it is time to start polishing. One effective way is with sandpaper on a flat stick. Start with the roughest you need. This was a pretty clean piece, so I started with 400 grit.

From there I went to 600, straight to tripoli compund then fabuluster. be careful if you use polishing compounds on wheels: do not let your tripoli get on anything with a higher grit. It will contaminate the wheel or whatever. When you switch to a higher grit polishing compound wash the piece AND your hands clean so as not to contaminate. If you buffs or even your compound is contaminatd you will not be able to get that higher polish.

Also, use a breakaway grip. That means if your wheel catches your item, it wont take your fingers with it. Below is the three rings with varying degrees of polish.

From here you can do alot, plain stackable rings or hammer them on the mandrel to get texture without ruining the shap. I personally added stones. The finished product from these three rings:

Oh, you know you want to buy it. ;)

Everyone has their own special way of doing things. Anyone else have techniques to add?