Many Faceted

Labradorite Demi-Parure

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This is the first demi-parure I’ve made (which is just a fancy way of saying a matched set.) Set completed in labradorite and sterling silver, in June-July 2015.

“A parure is a full set of matching jewelry designed to be worn together en suite. A demi-parure is a less elaborate suite of jewelry with two or more pieces. The French in particular were known to have delighted in wearing formalized and elaborate suites and indeed, the term parure comes from the French verb, parer, meaning to adorn.”
— Antique Jewelry University

The unset stones.

Stones with bezels and decorative borders.

Bezels with backs cut out.

Cut out and ready to file.

Finished pendant, ready to set.

Finished earrings, ready to set.

Polished and oxidized earrings and pendant.

Finished earrings, with labradorite rondelles.

Finished necklace, with labradorite rondelles and sterling drops and chain.

Detail of finished necklace.

A Birthday Necklace

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Mom's birthday necklace, front viewLast month was my mom’s birthday (hi Mom!), and I decided to make her a pendant using one of the stones I bought last summer from a fellow RAGMS member. I chose a blue-green oval, which the club member said was “turquoise” — not entirely incorrect. I believe it’s an Eilat stone: a combination of malachite, azurite, chrysocolla and turquoise (all copper-bearing minerals.) It’s a gorgeous stone, and I thought it would contrast well with Mom’s red hair and fair complexion.

I’m really happy with how this pendant turned out, I think it’s my best to date! I explained my design idea to my mentor, he broke it down into steps so I could work most efficiently, and I completed the piece in about 2.5 hours (a speed record, for me!)

Starting the birthday pendant Birthday pendant: bezel and decorative beading soldered to back plate, back cut-out detail sawed out.

As I was pressed for time, I only took a couple of in-progress photos (and didn’t want to post any more than these to Instagram or Facebook, for fear of ruining the surprise.) I soldered the bezel closed, then soldered the decorative beading wire closed in a ring, hammered it flat and fitted it to just outside the bezel, then soldered both to the back plate at the same time, which saved time, pain and stress. I then cut out a heart shape on the back plate, so the color of the stone would show through. (Definitely something I’d try doing again!)

Birthday necklace, front view Birthday necklace, side view Finished necklace in the workshop, three views

As I said, I’m pretty pleased with how this ended up, and so was the recipient! ♥

Casting, Part 2

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Today was Day 3 of Casting class, so here’s the rest of the wrap-up!

My cast silver ring, cleaned up and ready to finish and polish.

Before class started, I borrowed a coarse file and removed the remainder of the sprue from the bottom of my ring, so it’s now ready to (more finely) file, sand, and polish. (I ran it through the magnetic tumbler, which shined it up somewhat, but also scratched it up quite a bit, so in hindsight I wish I hadn’t bothered with it. Oh well.)

Since I forgot to photograph it yesterday, this is the kiln. ...and this is the vacuum machine. The left side is where a bell jar would go; the right side is used for vacuuming out a flask.

Today we were vacuum casting, and it did seem to go somewhat faster than the centrifugal casting (in part because the instructor took charge of melting the metal.) Each student removed their flask from the kiln, set up the vacuum on the flask, poured the molten metal, removed the vacuum, removed the flask for further cooling, and quenched the flask and cast object. It was, again, slightly frightening to go through the process, and I over-filled my flask, getting metal onto the vacuum chamber (oops.) The excess, I poured into ingots for re-use.

Here are the bronze chunks I chose to cast with. Starting to melt the bronze. Heating, heating, heating... It really took a long time to melt, I have to say. Nearly there. My flask is ready on the vacuum, and the metal is ready to pour. About to pour... I've just overfilled (you can see a blob of molten bronze on the vacuum machine.) Pouring the excess into ingot-depressions carved into a charcoal block. The molten top is actually borax glass, from the flux used in the crucible. So I kindof singed the paint on the vacuum... Still hot, still under vacuum. Cooled enough to remove to a heat brick, for further cooling.

So how did it come out? Well…

Here's my succulent casting, freshly out of the investment (with a lot of cleaning yet to go...) Another view of the fresh casting. Yet another view.
Here I've cleaned it off a bit better, though there's more work to be done. Another view. The spiky leaves are quite sharp! ...sharpness demonstrated by my already having a bandaid on.

The texture cast perfectly, as far as I’m concerned. There’s still a lot to clean up — there’s lots of tiny crevices where investment is lurking — but the zebra plant leaves are sharp and amazingly textured, and the gollum jade leaves are plump and weird-looking. There were a few minor issues with shrinkage and porosity (since the piece couldn’t be vacuumed after the investment was poured in, not every bubble was dislodged), but over all, I’m pretty happy! I need to have someone cut off the bottom to flatten it out (right now it wobbles like a Weeble), so it’ll sit properly.

One bonus to casting this piece in bronze is that I can patina it, using any number of wonderful recipes. Since you can only do so much with sterling, and I don’t really work in other metals that patina well (like copper, or bronze), it’s an exciting prospect!

Thanks again for following along! More posts (with actual, finished, non-class-related jewelry) coming soon.