Silversmithing

[fleurione.livejournal.com]

I have been very, very bad lately at getting down and doing what I want to do - silversmithing at home. I have set up a workshop area but have spent months getting distracted away from doing it.

So I was rather pleased to have decided the afternoon before a bithday party (a meal at 9:30.. so can't be late!) that I would make something out of silver for my friend. She used to be very into Lolita fashion, and while she doesn't wear the skirts and the lace as much, she is still very into the iconography - the keys and crowns and stuff.

I decided initially to make the idea I had been toying with for ages, of a key whose top is a fleur-de-lis and whose key-bit is a crown, but it is very complicated and I still can't draw a crown shape that I'm happy with :P

So I opted for a simplified version, a simple silver key with an initial. Her name begins with a K, which is useful, as there's a side of the letter to attach to the shaft... A's not so easy!

Materials are sterling silver sheet and tube, and what I thought was a large sterling silver jump ring but which yellowed when heated, so I don't believe that it is :/



I love this. I am so proud of my straight lines :P


I started off taking arty pictures of my progress, then realised that it all took too much time!


All in all it took me about three hours. If I spent more time on it, it would be better - but It's good enough to pass. I don't have a final finished photo as by this time I was in a rush to make it to the restaurant on time, but I continued sanding round the edges and corners with sandpaper and then buffed it all over with pumice powder and a toothbrush - it softens out the scratches that were left from my sanding as I don't have fine grade paper yet, and gives it a nice matte finish.

The whole thing measures maybe 2.5-3 times the diameter of a penny. I put a smaller jumpring onto the large ring for a silver chain to go through.


My other project is a set of two rings for another pair of friends. I opted for D-wire which is basically the cylindrical wire cut in half and found it impossibly hard to bend into the oval for the ring even when heated, and perhaps my struggle with it is what has put me off sitting down to do anything for a while. I have however just discovered the existance of 'low dome' wire which is what I should have been using all along. I was expecting to have to flatten the D-wire down somewhat on the ring mandrel, but this low dome wire will be SOOO much more easy. I may even get them done by Christmas!