JEWELLERY AND SMALL OBJECTS 1

Bezel Setting- 0.7mm copper sheet had to be anealed and rolled through the press to >0.5mm to create a sheet of a suitable thickness for a bezel. The sheet was measured and cut as per the formular provided by Clare. Ring shaped and sized to slip over cabochon.

Bezel Setting- Ring sanded in a figure 8 pattern.

Bezel Setting- Ring soldered to larger sheet of copper

Bezel Setting- Bezel cut from sheet leaving 1mm< rim.

Bezel Setting- Base filed and sanded flust with ring.

Bezel Setting- wire ring soldered onto the top before pickle and polishing. Learned later that this alignment of wire ring would make polising and setting more diffcult.

Bezel Setting- Stone set in bezel, ready for final polish.

I saw pierced, filed and sanded three 240mm discs from 0.7mm copper sheet using a compass scorer to mark out the circumfrence. From there I used a protractor to score two of the discs at 45 degree intervals. As per the sketched diagram, I marked a 20mm circled on both discs. Where the lines interestect, I scored 12mm circles on one plate and 14mm circles on the other. Pictured, I am hammering out the 14mm circles from what would be the perspective plate.

After some trial and error, I found that 18mm discs when domed to a diametre of 14mm gave the appropriate curve. Four discs were shaped in this fashion. One was cut in half and two were cut at roughly 1/3. The moon domes where arranged over the holes cut in the perspective plate with a cabochon of approximate size was placed under to assess its visual placement as pictured.

Pictured is a work in process of soldering the moon domes onto the perspective plate. This was the most challenging soldering work I have done to date and I have learned a lot. I learned what ammount and consistency of flux I prefer, the ammount and placement of solder and the advantages and disadvantages of smaller or larger torches.

0.7mm sheet copper was anealed and rolled to <0.5mm. The sheet was cut to the appropariate length and cut in 3mm strips to allow for 0.5mm to be removed through sanding.

After the rings were soldered as pictured, the were shaped and sized using a mandrel and a rawhide malet. Each ring was sized to slip over the cabochon from both sides.

Having learned from soldering the perspective plate, I felt confident enough to solder the bezel rings onto the moon plate two at a time. This reduced the working time considerable. I used a thin layer of wet solder on the plate and ring, aligning the ring over the scored 14mm circle and placed the solder on the inside of the ring to keep it contained.

(Not pictured!) There was a lot of excess solder once both the moon and perspective plates were made. Clare showed me how to remove it with the sanding discs. These were very effective when sanding on the outside of the plates, but I couldn't angle them correctly to sand effectively on the inner side. After trying several different bits, I used a double sided cutting disc from my home kit. While effective, it left very course marks on the plate that after going over twice with all levels of sanding paper and habaris discs I wasn't able to remove completely. In future, I may try dedeco discs before resorting to the cutting disc again.

I only quickly sanded and wire brushed the moon plate as very little of it would show in the finished work before setting the opalite cabochons. I used the bezel pusher and burnisher. (Not Pictured!) I embossed a spiral onto the perspective plate using binding wire. I was careless with my hammering and hit two of my domes. I reshaped the domes using the curved and flat pliers. I used sand paper and a split mantrel and habaras discs before polishing the perspective plate and orbital arm on the lathe with tripoli followed by rouge.

(Not Pictured) I attempted to emboss my celtic hand design onto the copper but was very disappointed in the result. Pictured- two of the three culture hands drawn on masking tape that was stuck onto the sheet copper and saw pierced out. As the scorer would tear the tape, I ended up using a scalpel to cut the designs onto the metal.

With the faint scalpel marks on the metal, I used a vatiety of tools to carve out the designs to create a relief for the patina I would use.

After using the patina I went to sand back but was unhappy with where and how the patina was removed. I saw Annabelle Kirkpatrick apply the patina with a brush and knew that was what I needed. I used the dedeco discs to removed all the patina from the culture hands and polished them up to rouge on the lathe. After that I brushed on the patina in the areas I wanted. After some reniesaunce wax, I was ready for assembly.

I attempted to fashion a clip or fastener as per the diagrams in the earlier section. I concluded that with the time I had, designing and fabricating a functioning release would be unfeasable so took Clare's advice and riveted the piece together. As it was a difficult rivet to do, I asked Katie for guidance and she did a fantastic job of walking me through the process. I preformed the first lip of the rivet befor feeding it through the bezel setting and tube that the other pieces were stacked on and out of the base plate. Then with the bezel sitting on a 12mm anvil form and Katie helping balance the work I shaped the rivet on the base plate. After the rivet was done I could set the centre stone. I waivered from my original design to use the same stones I had for the other settings and decided to used indian agate (representing Earth at the centre of the moons orbit). This cabochon was fractionally smaller the the cabochon the bezel ring was sized for, so the stone spins in its setting. I consider this a happy accident.

Finished piece pictured having just finished construction.