Review - Brief number 3: Design and make

Image created using Picasa and the Hockneyizer.

The third brief at Level 3 of my course was introduced in this post, with a follow up in this one.

We were asked to produce a learning journal based on a theme, to design a suite of jewellery based on the materials in the journal and finally to make the jewellery we had designed. I chose "Coast" as my theme, and settled on the shape of a ripple in the sand as the basis for my designs.

I produced a set of three pieces (a bracelet, earrings and a ring) that all included the ripple motif. As with the previous brief I am very happy to have followed a documented design process, and feel I am getting closer to working like a real designer. I like the finished pieces too, which hasn't always been the case!

The Coast learning journal contains a lot more material that I didn't exploit this time around, especially concerning colour, so I shall return to it in the future.

The end of the beginning

Display cases at end of year exhibition for OCN jewellery classes

My contribution to the display.


I have now attended the last class of the three year OCN (Open College Network) course. The time has gone very quickly. I have learned a great deal, and my approach to jewellery making has certainly matured - I shall be reflecting on this in a future post.

The college I attended has had to respond over the years to changes in the way in which government funding is made available for adult education. Such funding reduces the cost to the student. The OCN class I attended involved quite a lot of assessment because it was a requirement for continued funding. The assessment suited me rather well, as I like to document my progress (hence this blog!), but for many people the emphasis on assessment meant that there was less time for the practice that is essential when learning. More changes mean that this year was the last one that the OCN course was run, so I feel very lucky to have completed my three years just in time. In future, the college will be running more expensive, but less assessed, courses instead.

I called this post "The end of the beginning" because for me the classes represented the foundations of what will be a longer period of activity. I intend to keep designing and making jewellery, but recognise that I will need to set myself tasks and targets, as it would be very easy to stop without the structure provided by weekly classes.

Ripple earrings v2.0

I love my double ripple earrings, but they are just a bit big and dangly for me to consider them for everyday wear. This latest pair is slightly less flamboyant, with only one, smaller ripple on each earring. The total drop is 4.5 cm (1.75"), and the ripples themselves measure about 25 mm by 12 mm ( 1" x 0.5"). The ripples are made from 1.3 mm diameter silver wire. Because this wire is thicker than the 1 mm wire I was using before, it was possible to replace the hanging loop with a drilled hole. The wire was hammered flat and the hole drilled using a 1 mm drill bit.

One of my classmates gave me a really good tip for using such a fine drill. He shortens the shaft by holding the bit in two pairs of pliers and twisting so that it breaks. The bit can then be put in the chuck with only a short (e.g. 1 cm) length sticking out. It is much easier to control and doesn't go all wobbly in use!

There was only one solder join to make on each ripple, and I managed to make the joins quite neatly. The ripples were forged, and finished using 600 grit wet and dry paper, followed by a 20 minute tumble polish.

Ripple poll: vote for your favourite Ripple

I've set up a new online poll - you can see it in the sidebar on the right of this blog, just below the introductory bit. Please vote in the poll to let me know which of the three Ripple pieces you like the best! There are full size pictures of each of the pieces in this post. The poll will be open until 11 August 2008, but please cast your vote soon. I take great delight in seeing the votes come in!

Stone set ripple

This scrap of silver sheet carries echoes of previous work. The jigsaw bump (promontory? tab?) came from a very unsuccessful brooch. The silver from inside that polygon went on to be the back of my penannular bottle glass brooch. I've now used some of the remaining sheet for two bezel settings. The smaller one is for my puffin pendant. The other one is for a stone set ripple pendant.

I soldered the finished bezel setting to the very first ripple I made.

Then set the stone, which is 8 mm in diameter. The ripple is 45 mm long. This photo was taken after the first few pushes of the pusher.

I had taken more care to ensure that the top of the bezel was flat this time, and I think the setting is neater than my earlier efforts. This is a pleasing result, and I may try again with thicker wire. I think that it fits in well with the rest of the Ripple Suite.

The Ripple Suite: Complete

Double ripple earrings and bracelet


Ripple band ring with liver of sulphur (sulfur) patina. It is 5 mm wide.


Double ripple earrings (again)

And the inspirational photo.

The work in progress posts: 7, 8, 9, 10, 11,
The design posts: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

What do *you* see?

There's a little stick figure man in there (his head is where the two small ripples overlap) - see him? There's also a hint of two pregnant ladies, with tiny heads ...

First adventures with liver of sulphur

I am amazed at my success with applying a liver of sulphur/sulfur patina to one of my fold formed earrings. I would have been happy with black, but getting lovely colours was quite a bonus! Whether I shall be able to repeat this is, of course, quite another thing.

I started with the ripple band ring. I scrubbed it with soap and water, then applied pumice powder using a glass brush.

I used liquid liver of sulphur, sold by an art clay supplier who supplied it in the little bottle shown here. I added the liquid to hot tap water in the tub on the right. The red liquid came out of the bottle in a little glug rather than drops, but there were probably 10 drops or so. The ring was suspended from a thread and submerged for about 30 seconds.

This is how the ring looked after rinsing. I sanded the surface of the ripples with 600 grit wet and dry paper, but thought that the oxidation wasn't dark enough, so dipped the ring for a further half minute.

Here's the ring after its second dunk, and after sanding the ripples and the edges to remove the oxidation there. I'm pretty pleased with it.

Then I found my fold-formed earrings. I decided just to try the nicer one, which has more regular surface indentations. This time I didn't use any pumice powder, but just scrubbed the earring with soap and water, then rinsed and dried it. It took much longer for a colour change to take place this time, perhaps because the solution had cooled down, or because there was soap or grease left on the surface. The inside of the shape (which hadn't been scrubbed) turned black first.

When the silver had turned a copper-like colour, I removed it from the liver of sulphur, rinsed it and used wet and dry paper on the surface. Then I returned it to the solution for a couple of minutes, before rinsing and sanding again.

And this was the result.

Progress with Ripple pieces

The bracelet has been tumble polished and is now completed. The main section is 16 cm (6.25") long

The double ripple earrings (in silver, based on this copper test piece) need more tumbling, and perhaps a little shape tweaking. The two shapes are arranged slightly differently from the prototype, as they look better that way in this case!

The band ring is coming along. I have shaped the flat strip (seen in this post) into a ring. I've done some filing and sanding, but it still needs to be tidied up considerably. I think that this ring may become my first experiment with liver of sulphur.

Ripple band ring started

The ripple band ring, which will be part of my Ripple suite (with earrings and bracelet), will be made from 1 mm thick silver sheet, decorated with little ripples made from 0.6 mm wire. I've made a start on this.

Each mini-ripple was made from a 6 mm diameter ring of wire. These differ a little from my other ripples as there is no loop, and I cut off a little bit of wire after shaping each.

I spent a lot of time on fixing the ripples to the silver sheet, because it took a long time to work out how best to do it. I started out trying to solder all six ripples at once. None of them joined to the sheet, and the end of the wire balled on a couple of the ripples.

My next attempt was to fuse the ripples, as they heated up very quickly. I tried just one ripple, and although the wire looked very hot and liquid, it didn't attach. I decided this was not the time to do my first fusing project after all.

The next change was to hammer the ripples flat, and solder just one at a time. I finally had some success here, but success was strongly related to how I was supporting the sheet. I had to give up on a couple of runs as I was heating the sheet, my tweezers and the soldering block, and just couldn't raise the temperature high enough with my little butane torch. Holding the sheet above the block with the tweezers covering just a tiny bit of metal in a distant corner was the best approach. I suspect if I had been at the class with access to a bigger torch, this would have simply changed, rather than solved, my problems. I would have had melting crises instead!

Before taking the piece to the class to finish, I have cut the silver the right width and length. The surface finish is going to need some work.

Puffin pendant design

Although I have been concentrating on the suite of items on the Ripple theme, I do still want to try and make one piece based on the shape of the puffin's beak. I have previously shown some preliminary sketches. These sketches are my latest thoughts.

The shape still has a slight feel of the Starship Enterprise, but I think it is also puffin-like. Ideal for the sci-fi birdwatcher!

From ripple necklace to ripple bracelet in one easy step

The next step in assembling my ripple necklace was to solder the loops on the links closed, leaving the main part of the link open so the links could be joined together.

The soldering went well. After pickling, I was able to lay out the links to check the length of the finished piece.

Making the second set of solder joins (to close the links) turned out to be harder than I'd expected, and this was one part of the construction that I hadn't practised in advance using copper. In several cases, I managed to re-melt the hard solder in the loop, and the loop then got fixed to the next link. In fact, by the time I'd finished I had just enough undamaged links left to construct a bracelet instead of a necklace.

This is the bracelet shown before the ripple links have been forged.

And this is the bracelet after the ripple links have been forged. The ripples have also been slightly bent to suit the curve of the wrist. The bracelet is still to be tumbled polished.

I hope to be able to salvage some of the wire from the wrongly joined links to make other items. But I need to re-think the whole design of the links before attempting another necklace.

Ripple necklace started

I've started to construct my ripple necklace in silver. Here are some of the links at three different stages in the shaping process. So that they can be joined together neatly, the loop for these links is perpendicular to the plane of the ripple. Each piece of wire is initially 6.25 cm long.

Double ripple test piece

These earrings, made from copper with the earwires in silver, are made using two ripples links with the relative sizes mentioned in this earlier post. The total drop is about 5 cm. I am happy with the way the two links hang together and will proceed to make a pair in silver.

Multiple ripples

I mentioned in an earlier post that I wanted to make some earrings with more than one ripple link. Obviously there are lots of possibilities here, but I started by deciding that the curvatures on the links would be the same, even though their overall sizes would differ. It took only a couple of sketches to decide that making the smaller link fit in the top, wide part of the larger link worked well. Some back of the envelope calculations and I now have a starting point, and will be cutting the longer wire 1.5 times the length of the shorter one.

I'm also thinking about setting a stone in one of the ripple links. These sketches helped me decide on the location, but I'll do another series to be sure of the size of stone to use. Not sure how the setting will affect the hanging of the link though. This will probably be the last variation on the ripple theme that I try, as the necklace of links and the band ring should come first.

Brief number three and three quarters

Image created using the Hockneyizer.

We are not going to receive a Brief Number 4. Instead, Number 3 has been extended to include making a piece based on the research undertaken in that brief.

We had earlier been told that our final brief (1) would involve making a suite of pieces with a common theme, and (2) should be something that it would be practical to make for sale, in terms of both making time and materials costs. So I had those features in mind when working with the Coast theme materials, and have included them in my ideas for the Ripple series. I envisage my suite consisting of earrings, a necklace and a band ring.

Prototype ripples

Further to this post, I've been working on making the basic ripple link from copper wire. Have made good progress, but the bottom needs to be just a bit more pointed.

Toyed with the idea of hanging more than one link from each ear wire. They looked good laid out on the bench, but disappointing when hung. They will need to be differently sized links for this to work.

Setting another polymer clay cabochon

I need a bit more practice with making bezel settings. I am getting much better at the first steps, but am not happy with the results of using the pusher and burnisher. The final result looks crinkly and unprofessional. So I'm setting another polymer clay cabochon that I made a year or so ago.

The cabochon is identical in shape and size to the one featured before because I used the same mould to make it (pictured). I think I bought mine from here. The cabochons are relatively easy to make following the instructions that come with the mould. Most of the effort goes into the finishing using various grades of wet and dry paper (used wet).

Here are four pictures taken during the setting process.The first three are in the phase when using the pusher, the last one (bottom right) is after some work with the burnisher. I am finding these photos very useful. They show up irregularities that I don't notice by eye - that little notch on the right hand side for example. I should have removed it before stating to push the bezel.

Starting to ripple

I made my first ripple! Based on one of the sketches shown in this post. It is about 4 cm long. I was reasonably pleased with it, so I've taken a few steps back and am now working out how to make them properly.

The first step was to get some copper wire to experiment with. I wanted to make a set of shapes at different sizes to decide which aspect ratio (shape size to wire thickness) I liked best. The copper wire was much softer than the silver, and I had trouble making smooth curves.

So, taking another step back I decided to work on developing a method to make the shapes reproducibly and without too many kinks. I made good progress with that. The shapes link together well too, so I'll keep going with this idea.

As I work on this, the shapes will probably move away from the original inspiration seen in this photo.