Commissions Underway

Commissions Underway

 

This week is starting to be a productive week, with the studio is to a stage where we no longer have all the dust from building inhibiting the work space, I have actually been able to sit down at the bench (after cleaning it) and start creating! There have been a few pieces that have been hanging around and well, now is the time to get them done and out of the studio. 
This piece was given to me a while ago from a student who had made the item, but it was too big for the intended user and needed to be resized. How do you resize a ring that has a gem in it I here you say! Carefully! If you can't remove said gem, then you are trying to protect the gem as much as possible. In this case I used paper towel that was wet and wrapped the setting up. This produces a lot of steam in the process which prevents the ring getting hot enough to melt the solder. Eventually though, enough of the water in the towel burns off that the metal can get hot enough and the solder melts. A little of the paper towel burns but it does not catch fire. 
After pickling (acid bath), I then shaped the ring carefully on a mandrel and made cut the bezel down so the gem was more exposed than it was. Sometimes bezels are too high and cover too much of the gem. This is meant to be the centerpiece of the ring - so you want to sing! A quick clean up of the ring and setting, with a polish and here we have it. All good. 
So,you yourself may have a piece that need a little TLC and reconditioning, sitting in a draw somewhere. Sometimes a clean and polish can do the world of good in making that much loved item look brand new again! 
Contact me today to discuss.