soldering – Ornamento

Porcelain and Bronze Make Jewelry

By: ornamento.blog July 2, 2020June 30, 2020

Art, Jewelry Making Tutorial, links to free tutorials, ring making, solderingArt, Colored Porcelain, Jewelry making tutorialLeave a Comment

I’ve been fooling around with colored porcelain components for a while, and usually make them into pendants or earrings. Here’s my first ring which might not be a practical application, but it was fun to try. The metal is bronze, my current favorite.

diagram I decided to go with a prong setting in bronze. The basic diagram (not to scale) is above. I cut a piece of wire, soldered it closed with hard solder and shaped it with a round mandrel. Then I laid out the prongs in the 2, 4, 8, and 10 O’clock positions and soldered them on with hard solder. (The red dotted line is an estimate of the size of my ceramic focal so I could be sure that I cut the prongs long enough.) Then I cut, shaped and filed the shank and soldered it on with medium solder. Here’s a tutorial that shows something similar to what I did.

I cleaned up the ring and bent the prongs around the focal so I could measure where to cut them before balling them with a torch,

I didn’t use easy solder on the ring because I didn’t want to detach a prong when I balled it.

Shaping the prongs around the focal and making sure it is centered on the ring

I tapped the prongs very lightly with a hammer to tighten them.

Definitely not a ring for everyday wear!

I now have a small kiln that fires to cone 6, so I expect to be making more ceramic components in the future.

Sneak Preview!

By: ornamento.blog April 25, 2013April 26, 2013

Art, recycling, repurposing, solderingArt, Bead Soup Blog Party, creativity3 Comments

This Saturday is reveal day for group three in the 7th Bead Soup Blog Party. I thought I would give a sneak preview of some of the things I made. The rule is that you must use the focal and the clasp that your blog partner sends you. In my case, my partner Miranda Ackerly sent me a great focal and clasp and I am using them both-but in different pieces. So decided to make a clasp for one of the necklaces out of brass

Start of Toggle 1 The pieces cut out

toggle2

The brass disk was part of the bead soup and I textured it and the loop and toggle clasp

Texturing toggle

Another View

Toggle Soldering

Ready for soldering. You’ll have to wait for reveal day to see the finished clasp.

b7-6

This is a clasp I made for another piece you will see on reveal day. It’s made of stripped electrical wire and a section o ring from a 5 gallon plastic bucket which resembles thick buna cord and it’s free when you find it in the street!

And here are some more preview pix!

Pain and Soldering

By: ornamento.blog June 14, 2012June 14, 2012

Art, Art Education, art, creativity, crafts, inspiration, Craft demonstration, Lexi Erickson, Silversmithing, solder, soldering, ToolsInterweave DVD, metalsmithing, Soldering Tips, Tutorial2 Comments

Bezel Experiments

I have a friend who’s been a goldsmith for more than forty years. She told me told me that she learned how to solder jewelry by working with a plumbers torch over a pumice tray and crying a lot. Hey, soldering can be frustrating to learn. You can’t ignore the laws of chemistry. Metals do not all have the same properties. Different varieties of solder flow at different temperatures and the flame must be hot enough to do the job. So, sometimes a micro torch will work and sometimes it’s just not hot enough. But the size of what you’re soldering affects things too. If you are connecting one small wire to another, a micro torch might be fine, but if you are soldering a bezel and need to heat a larger metal mass, the micro torch might not be sufficient. Or you might have to use two micro torches at once. (Press here for a description of this technique.) Solder flows towards heat which means that if you point the flame at the join, the solder will go everywhere but the join. Solder will not fill gaps; the items you are connecting must sit as flush as possible. And fire can be scary; you must respect it and take the appropriate measures to work with it safely.

I have been practicing my soldering. As you can see from the bezels above, I’m a little heavy handed with the solder. I am still working on getting my bezel soldering mojo and hope to improve on that in time. Until then, it’s lots of cleanup. But even with my limited experience, I have a few tips.

Take a class. You, need to learn about lighting a torch and basic safety, but there is another important reason: you can read about soldering all you want but until you witness the difference stages of soldering from the initial heating to when the solder starts to flow, it won’t make sense. It helps when you see what color the metal should be, what the solder looks like right before it flows and how long it takes to flow.
Does your carefully laid out solder skitter as soon as you hit the metal with the flame because the flux starts bubbling? Pass the flame over the flux to dry it before you place the solder. No more skittering.
If you try binder wires, clips and tweezers to hold everything in place, they will act as heat sinks and draw heat away from where it needs to go to get a sturdy solder join. Charles Lewton-Brain wrote an article on soldering tips and tricks for Ganoksin where he gives instructions for making a thingy to weigh down pieces you are trying to solder together.

Here is an idea for another thingy from the Etsy Metal Blog

Yet another soldering thingy.

You can purchase this one from Wholelottawhimsey.

And finally, you need to check out Lexi Erickson‘s videos on soldering. I met Lexi when she was a guest speaker at the Main Line Bead Society and gave an entertaining and illuminating presentation on creativity. I thought she might be an academic but I was only half right because the next thing I knew, she had moved to Colorado and was blogging, making jewelry, teaching and writing great articles for Lapidary Journal Jewelry Artist.

She drew on her years of experience as a goldsmith and university level metalsmithing teacher to put together two videos on soldering that are full of practical information, including an explanation of the various types of torches used in soldering, tools, solders, and several soldering techniques. The videos are well filmed which is vital in a video about soldering. You really need to see how the materials look during each step of the process before you understand what is supposed to happen when you are soldering properly. You can buy the videos from Interweave.

Lexi’s videos are extremely helpful, she would tell you that you still have to practice, practice, practice. Like throwing pots and making lampworked beads, the more you make, the more skilled you will become. As Malcolm Gladwell said in Outliers, “Practice isn’t the thing you do once you’re good. It’s the thing you do that makes you good.”

For the Bezel Challenged

By: ornamento.blog June 7, 2012June 4, 2012

Art, art, creativity, crafts, inspiration, Design, inspiration, jewelry, Metal Work, Metal Working, problem solving, solder, solderingArt, Jewelry Making, metalsmithing, Tutorial1 Comment

My friend Sherman claims to be bezel challenged. That got me thinking. Who hasn’t had a cool stone or glass cab that would look great in a metal setting? And while you can always wire wrap or make a tab setting (here’s a link to a great tutorial from Jewelry Making Daily on making tab settings) maybe you are ready for something a little more advanced’

So, here is a setting idea for the bezel challenged. Are you listening Sherman?.

I took 14 gauge copper wire, cleaned it and made a shape. I filed the wire ends flat for a butt join and soldered the join with medium solder.

After pickling and rinsing, I laid three 18 gauge wires with balls on both ends on top of the shape and soldered them on, again with medium solder. I also soldered the bail on during this step. (It has a little tab of metal I slipped under the 14 gauge wire and gravity held everything in place). You might prefer to solder on the bail in a different step. The beauty here is that you don’t have to worry about fit because the wires you’re soldering together already touch each other. The soldering goes very quickly. If you solder in three stages you might consider using easy solder for the last step.

Here I am making a bail from a strip of 18 gauge copper and bail making pliers.

Here’s another shape cleaned up. You can see that I was too generous with the solder on one of the wires. But there is an easy solution. Toss a steel nail and your copper piece back in the pickle. I don’t heat my pickle so I leave it for maybe five hours. The steel makes the copper that is floating around in the pickle coat the copper piece. If you have any silver or brass pieces in the pickle, they will become copper coated too, so leave them out. At the end of the period, fish out the nail and it will be slimy with copper (and your pickle will be cleaner!) The silver solder on the copper piece will no longer be visible. You can still sand and file it off, so don’t be any more vigorous than you have to be with the finishing. And yes, it is durable.

The final step is to bend the prongs front and back to hold the cab in place. You can also use your pliers to make interesting shapes with the prongs. You can make the prongs long and coil them into spirals if you like. You need to make at least three prongs to hold the cab securely.

With this technique, you don’t have to measure your stone or cab as accurately as you need to when you make a bezel. I just eyeballed the pieces in this post. Another advantage of this technique is that you can see both sides of the item you are setting unlike a bezel where you only see the front. The backs of fused cabs are usually not that interesting but stones are another story.

This technique lends itself to playing with the metal too. For the piece below, I soldered a bunch of copper rings together and then added a smaller circle with the soldered prongs.

If you are using a micro torch, be sure it’s hot enough; not all micro torches are created equal. A good choice is the Blazer GB2100. Also, you need a soldering surface that will work with you and not against you. I prefer a refractory block. A Solderite soldering board is another option.

I am not sure how I am going to use this yet. If I had to do over, I would have balled the wire that holds the cab from the back. It doesn’t look bad the way it is, but it could have looked better.

Even though I “discovered” this technique while playing around, I am sure it’s been around for years because it’s so intuitive. I am interested in seeing what other people have made with it. If you know about anything, send it my way.

Take a Peek into My Workshop

It’s been a while since Libby Mills profiled my workshop in her blog’s Studio Snapshot series. Since then, I’ve branched out into other mediums including felt, do more metalsmithing, and have acquired some new tools.

I am lucky enough to have a dedicated space for my work, but I live in a small house and purge regularly out of necessity. This includes my workshop. My current set up is the result of regular purging and many wasted hours playing Tetris.

Here are some pictures of the ordered chaos.

Mixing It Up

This year, I’ve gone from a metal and soldering frenzy to a lamp working frenzy, to a glass and ceramics tumbling frenzy, to a glass fusing frenzy, to a felting frenzy. Every so often, I get in the torch enameling. And there are always the seed beading designs I’m working on. Did I mention that I ruin a lot of stuff? But some of the metal can be recycled and most of it started out as recycled anyway. (I used to have a lovely let of brass charger plates.) The fused glass can be cut up and refused. The lamp working failures can be turned into frit or become elements in fused pieces so long as you keep the COE straight. And you can use an ugly felted bead as a base for another bead.

I decided to combine the polymer beads and lamp work into a necklace and make a clasp. The polymer beads are interspersed with the lamp worked beads. Many of the lamp worked beads are fumed with silver and the focal bead is hollow . For for the clasp. I made jump rings and soldered them to copper washers from Harbor Freight that I textured with my home made texturing hammers. I’m not sure if I am happy with all of the polymer beads; I might make some new polymer beads at Clayathon . But here’s what I have so far.

Stained Glass Pendants and Suncatcher

By: ornamento.blog January 7, 2010January 6, 2010

Art, copper, Design, Hand Made, inspiration, solderingArt, crafts, creativity, jewelry, mixed media2 Comments

Some Christmas gifts from this year. The glass is foiled and hand cut. I used glass on the back of the pendants (fourth picture) in a color to compliment the picture on the front, and I had fun mixing yarn from my stash for hanging the pendants. Since I didn’t have any fold over cord ends, I made wire ends to hold the yarn together, and attached the clasps to them.

I got the globules in the sun catcher at the dollar store. I didn’t take any classes in these techniques; I learned everything I know from YouTube videos.

My Blue Heart

My husband had an extremely difficult 2008- so bad his heart was broken and he finished the year undergoing open heart surgery. He’s getting better, regaining his strength and looking forward to becoming a Grandfather.

I intended to make a totally different piece when I made the heart bezel used in the above pendant. But my materials told me to take a different course and when I finished, I had the pendant you see here. It wasn’t until I showed my it to my husband that I realized I had made it for him.

Make Clasps from Found Objects

I’ve been thinking a lot about jewelry made from found objects lately, probably because I have been asked to give a talk on the topic at the April meeting of the Main Line Bead Society. So this morning as I was brushing my teeth, it hit me: Why couldn’t I make a clasp from those cool copper washers I got at Harbor freight? I always get my best ideas in the morning. I had to wait until I came home from work to give it a try.

I took two washers about 18 gauge thick and sawed a slit in one just big enough for the other one to fit through. Then I made jump rings from 18 gauge copper wire and soldered them on the washers. Then I pickled, cleaned, punched a pattern on the clasps, gave them liver of sulfur bath, and polished them up. The placement of the opening relative to the jump rings is critical; you want your necklace to stay on. I don’t recommend this clasp for bracelets. It has kind of an old Roman feel, don’t you think? Here are the pictures.

This last clasp is from an object I found on the street- a sheaf of 10 gauge copper wire encased in black electrical tubing. You can take off the tubing and use the wire. I made a clasp out of mine. Here’s that picture.

Christmas Ornaments with Repurposed Materials

I make lamp worked beads; sometimes with scrap glass and I fuse glass, too. I was pondering whether to toss the little odd scraps. ugly beads and fused pieces that didn’t come out quite right. Then I decided to try something new. I started playing with the materials and ended up making Christmas ornaments using the copper foiling method. Here’s what I came up with. I will give them away as gifts. They might make nice sun catchers when the tree is taken down.