OLIO 3

Sorry, don't have anything to show for this post, but I have been doing a few things.  Those pesky little chores that most of us have to go through every now and then.  Mainly making a  bunch of jump rings, different sizes, different ire gauges.  They are pretty easy to make if you have one of the jump ring makers.  When I use the cutting part of the tool, I always insert a small dowel, or piece of bamboo skewer through the coil, then when the coil is cut, I don't have rings flying around inside the cutting jig.  The rings come out a lot better that way.  The next step, I pour the rings into a wire sieve and swirl them around in a bowl of water that has  dash of Dawn dish soap added.  This get rid of the lubricant. After the are dried, I close up the rings, string them on a piece of wire, and tumble them for about an hour to toughen them up a bit.  While still strung on the wire, I swished them around in a solution of liver of sulfur to put a bit of patina on them.

I also took some common house wiring, 12 gauge copper, annealed it and ran it through the rolling mill, flattening some of it out to 24 gauge.  Then cut the wire into various lengths, and twisted them to make chain links, and drilled the ends for 20 gauge jump ring.  These I strung on a temporary wire, washed them, and swished these through the patina bath.

Then, I made a bunch of wire drops.  Various kind of coils, tight and loose. These are decorative elements to add interest to designs.  Some have a single stone bead added, mainly some kind of agate or jasper as some of these type of stone go pretty well with copper.

Next, balled up the ends of pieces of copper wire in various gauges.  These, again, are to be added as decorative elements to metal shapes, etc.

Maybe sometime around the first of October I will be able to show something.

OLIO 2

Between the first part of August, and now the first part of September, I accomplished very little.  Put together more cold connected elements.  I have a problem.  I like to experiment with different things, and put things together.  But, for some reason,  That is as far s it goes. I must have over two hundred different elements that are wanting to be made into something, and yet I lack the incentive, or inspiration to go ahead and finish.  Below is a pic of a partially finished necklace. 

The rocks are sold as "Maple Turquoise" which is a misnomer.  They are dyed Howlite.  Even so, they are kind of pretty.  The flatten wire drops are common household wiring.  Cut, annealed, flattened, looped and patinated and strung on a piece of copper tubing.  I had to enlarge the holes in the copper beads so the would slide on the tube.  The the ends of the tube were flattened and drilled.  The jump rings are 18 gauge copper, also patinated.

I used Patina Gel for the patina.  It is liquid (sort of syrupy), liver of sulfur.  A lot handier to use than the old chunky los in a can.  I bought it from Cool Tools.

Some more of the Maple Turquoise.

I won't promise anything, but I hope to post a little more often than once a month.