Oh Snap!

So the second project in my metals class was to make a ring or a pin or a pendant. You had to sweat solder an element, which is soldering a flat piece of metal to another flat piece of metal. You were to use your 1x3" sheet of sterling silver (you could add copper if you wanted, brass does not bond well to real silver) which costs $22 (versus $8 for 6x6"of copper) and was a little nerve wracking to cut into.

I was pretty busy at this point in time and nothing fabulous came to me so I went with the best idea I had- a camera ring:

I cut out a teeny tiny camera shape (with flashbulb), hammered the flashbulb into a rounded shape, and sweat soldered it to the band while it was still in strip form. I textured the camera and the band. Then comes the challenging part: aligning the ends of the band perfectly so there's no gap and soldering the ring together without undoing what I'd already soldered. Whew, I did it!

People got a kick out of having this on the side, wish I had an exclamation point stamp:

The other side had some random texture- what I'd tried for (hammering "film holes" didn't work so it just became this:

And I "signed" it with an E. It still cracks me up when people ask why there's an E on my things....HELLO!

Then there was filing/clean up work and I antiqued it with liver of sulfur so you could see the texture and lettering.

I was sick for part of this project, so I missed some work time. And I wasn't terribly motivated. I was happy just to have something to turn in. I like the ring, but it's not really resolved. At critique people liked it, but thought it could have been better, which is how I felt. I look at it as being a practice piece of sorts. I wound up getting a C+ on it. I was bummed about the C, but you can't win them all. Thankfully this project isn't weighted as heavily as the others, though this means I have to kick butt the rest of the semester. Other people made better rings, other people did worse, I was in the middle. Some people really didn't think things through- a loop for a heavy pendant that is too low will just make your pendant flip over!

The other issue I had was that cutting teeny tiny things out is hard- especially for me cause I have nerve damage in my hands. Sterling silver is softer and was more slippery to saw through then brass or copper, which didn't help. My teacher knew I was sick, but she doesn't know about my hands and I didn't want to sound like I'm copping out or making up excuses. It's frustrating.  

There's times like this that I wish I could cast things instead of fabricate them to get volume. This is one of those times. At least this ring is more comfortable/wearable than the rings I casted in the past! Those turned out big and heavy.

So I still have a bit of silver left (and really $22 isn't bad if I want to do more) so I'll have to figure out what to do with it! Maybe a pendant or another ring...

Next project? Metal boxes! Maybe I'll try another camera...