Time to start showing off a bit of what I do for a living. This was a collaborative effort with the boss. she sculpted the components, I assembled them. I don't know how well it shows in the back shot, but there are 5 solders all at about the same point.
Oh yeah... what is it you might ask. That kids, is 14k electroplate on silver and copper. It's a ritual piece of some sort, but I couldn't tell you even if I knew.
Today's projects. Last three days, actually. It's a wedding set that was ordered kind of last minute...not that I mind the rush.* These are scratch builds, that is, they started as sheet silver and were formed completely using hand tools. Hers is a classic Y band in 1mm. The leaf work is then soldered on carefully ,add the bezel and set. The engraving on the leaves took the longest besides polishing His was a bit trickier. He wanted an organic feel to go with the oak leaf. The pattern was created by sweating (laminating, essentially) a cutout onto 0.75 mm and then annealing (heating till it glows orange). The bezel was filed out and inserted afterwards. The stones are a matching set of carnellians, about 6x8mm. *Final price. $700
Been a while since I posted. Festivals every weekend in June kinda got me behind on fun projects. First up, something cast for the feckin' Irish and other Celtic types... Every girl needs a Claddagh!!! How better to dazzle your natural redhead? clear shot on the garnet = 1.0 carat, diamonds = 0.4 carats 14K Yellow Next, a bit of an exercise in illustration. It's supposed to be a raven, but I'm not fond of the beak. It's a WIP that'll be a pendant that can alternately cast as a pin. This original is going to have an open set diamond in the claw, and likely a topaz chip in the eye. Now the one I've really had a ball on. Just look, then I'll tell ya about it. S/S- size 10. 15 stones: Garnet, Rhodolite Garnet, Citrine, Topaz, Blue Topaz, Savorite, and a Saphire. These are what are called gypsy settings, ironically, one of the most secure if done competently. The metal is rolled back over the girdle of the stone. You can see where I got it perfect in the ones where the cap of the stone is just a hair higher than the band. You don't want to know how long this took (Day and a half on the setting alone). The drillbits used are in 0.1 mm increments to allow for the variation in cuts. More soon, got a great necklace on the go... 17 settings
New stuff!! First, a drinking horn band in sterling. This necklace is hand made settings. From the centre out there's a green agate followed by pairs of citrine, garnet, amethyst, blue topaz, blue/green tourmaline, peridot, green tourmaline, and finally, dark green tourmaline. By hand made I mean that each stone is measured and the bezel is cut to that size (t=<0.5mm). Those are soldered onto sheet, cut and drilled, then the rings are soldered afterwards. Once the stones are set, they're joined using oval rings to encourage the piece to sit flat. Each one from start to finish is about 90 minutes...plus the three that the studio ate at varied stages of development
fuck.. i really wish I still had these pictures. When my time at ravenshoard ended, I got kicked pretty far down the well. LOsing the gig also meant losing the means to do this stuff. As the few of you who I'm connected to elsewhere know, I've been drifting, trying to stay above water for some time. Frankly, my pride is irrelevant next to feeling of achievement that this so often brought me. I've been working out the wishlist of what it'd take to have a one bench studio, run it at zero for the first six months, and a few blue chip niches I can make repeat clientele out of. Next step will be a kickstarter-once I figure out a realistic number to aim for. I was good at this...:/
