Shelves and Stuff

Finally got the shelves put up!  These are in the garage. Now, I have a place for stuff.  Stuff that cluttered up the work bench.  The idea is to leave the bench top open to work on one operation at a time.  The only things somewhat permanently attached to the bench are the two rolling mills.  They can be moved if it becomes necessary to do so.  Behind the small mill is a metal shear.  The mills and the shear are covered when not in use.

The placement of the various tools on the shelves is temporary.  The old coffee can that holds the propane tank is fastened to a scrap piece of plywood. On the other end of the plywood has a torch holder fastened to it.  This arrangement can be moved elsewhere on the bench and is clamped down with a small C-clamp.  The same is true with the flex shaft and the other equipment.  Pushing C-clamp usage to the maximum, here!

Right now, the plan is for cold tools on the left end on the shelves, and hot tools on the left.  I think you can see this in the photos.  There still more rearranging to do.  A more convenient place for the soldering tools, pick, flux brushes, tweezers, burn'em up pliers, etc.

Dapping and some texturing will be done inside in the laundry room studio.  I laugh every time I write that "laundry room studio."

Two additional shelves were put over a sink in the garage, but the space is tight it's not possible to get a good photo of them.

All for this edition.  Happy Thanksgiving All!

OLIO 5

The wife and I visited the Bella Vista (AR) Art and Craft Fair over the weekend.  We go principally to visit with artist friends that we have known for decades.  We look back at all the trials and tribulations we went through as exhibitors and we wonder, "How did we ever manage to do what we did?"  And now, we are so thankful that we are retired and no longer have put up with the rigors involved.  For many that show their wares, it is a way of life.  They are trapped.  Their art is their sole income, and there is no predicting whether you will have a good show and make money enough to pay for all your expenses. or whether the show will be a bust with little or no income.  We have had a few shows exactly like that.  Sometimes through no fault of our own, such as promised advertising by the show's promoter, only to find the promoter has absconded with the money and is nowhere to be found.  Later run down and ordered to refund the show fees.  But still, the artists have the expense of transportation, meals, etc.

Anyway, we did cruise through the show, looking, but not buying much.  The wife; an illustrated book by a favorite artist, me; a jar of crabapple jelly.  As far as jewelry went, it varied for just plain bead stringing to some very fine silver jewelry, and a very nicely done scrimshaw.

John DeRosier, so glad to see you back posting again.  Sorry you lost you cartoonist job.  Maybe with that fertile brain of yours, you could entertain us with cartoons based on jewelry making.  I am reminded of an old cartoon series, of which I have forgotten the title, principally about the trials of an apprentice machinist who was always getting something wrong, or doing something wrong.  The cartoons were hilarious!  It wouldn't fly nowadays because America has gotten away from old time machining, backyard mechanics and blacksmiths.  Time was as an apprentice machinist you had to learn how to run ALL the various machines.  Now, we have computerized machines to do the work.

Anyway, John has a great plier rack that worth taking a look at. http://johnderosier.blogspot.com

Sharilyn Miller has come up with something completely new for her.  She's made ceramic beads and they are gorgeous!  Wow!  To visit, just type in your search engine search box, Sharilyn Miller

On the home front, my bench is a total disaster.  I am forced to stop.  This week, I must put up some shelving in the garage to store some of the overflow, move some of the benches around  to make things work better.  Spent quite a bit of time tossing out a bunch of stuff which I will never use to make a little more space.  Maybe someday, I'll post something on the jewelry making front.

OLIO 4 - MAKING WIRE FORMS, NEW TOOLS, ETC., ETC.

In this pic, a pile of square, half-hard, 18 gauge, copper wire, heavy duty round nose pliers marked for positioning wire, the resulting "S" connector, all resting on a rubber filing block.  Necessary tools not shown: flush wire cutter; small hand file, No. 4 cut, for filing the wire ends, (more on this later); brush to clean file; steel bench block; rawhide mallet and fine point Sharpie pen.

Some wire cutters, sold as flush cutting, actually don't cut perfectly flush.  Cut a piece of wire.  Take a look at the "flush" end with 10x magnifier.  Aha! You see that tiny pip a the end?  Not truly flush.  Sometimes, when you think you are holding your cutters square with the wire, you aren't, and the cut is  slanted.  In both cases, this is where the fine cut flat file makes the wire end nice and square.

The mallet and the steel bench block are used to flatten the connector should the wire twist a bit and the connector is a bit crooked.  A couple whacks with the mallet sets things straight.  I made some round wire connectors the same, with soft wire, and whacking them 10 times on one side and 10 on the other, to work harden them.  Rawhide is sort of old school nowadays with nylon and plastic mallets available.

A small display of various other wire forms.  By no means all that I made.   Just a small sampling. The purpose of these, is to use them singly, or maybe two, to add interest to the overall composition of a piece of jewelry.  By themselves they don't look like much at all.  None of the forms shown are completely finished.

Shown are dimpling pliers.  The one on the right makes a 1 mm dimple, the left one is 3 mm.  Why would you want one or both of these?  Well, the best reason I can think of, is they provide a quick way to add some texture to a metal element.  Sure, you can do the same thing with dapping punches and a steel block.  Or, dapping punch and a hardwood block, or a lead block, (not used too much nowadays.  But, you have only one tool to make a dimple, in place of three.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS:

Well, I gone and done it again.  Forgot to welcome new followers to the blog.  My bad.  Anyway, glad your here, it's always nice to have new followers.  WELCOME!

Comments.  Got an unexpected, nice comment from Michael David Sturlin, about the piece I wrote way back in 2010 on the Goldsmith's Hammer.  Thanks, Michael, nice of you to take the time to write.

METALSMITH magazine, Volume 32, No. 4.  devotes it's pages to Gothic Jewelry.  Beautiful work, but it would take a special person to wear it!  Wow!

Mary Hettsmansperger is out with a new book, HEAT, COLOR, SET, & FIRE, published by Lark Crafts.  Lark almost always has outstanding books. Better than Klambach or Interweave.  Northlight also produces some good ones.  I've always like Mary's work.  I guess the reason I relate more to her work is that I sort of follow along similar lines.

In this book there wasn't much new to me, but there were things I never thought of using to add color to metal.  There's a lot of material available on the market now not covered in the book.  Then again, you can't cover everything!

Well, folks, that's it for now.  Hope to be back soon.

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.