From Yesterday's Blues to Today's Excitement

Sorry about that downer post yesterday, but I now have some excitement to counteract it!

First of all, I woke up to an overnight Etsy sale: my Chain Maille Rosette Watchband. Sales in general still have not gotten old and, for some reason, waking up to them is even better. I just think it's so much fun knowing that someone was mysteriously scoping out my goods overnight and some kind of magic happened thus creating a sale. The selling fairies were with me during the night!

Next, a past customer has contacted me about doing another custom piece for her! Our first collaboration resulted in an amazing (if I do say so myself) purse which I need to share with you in another post.

And the last bit of Armoury excitement: a girl I work with has commissioned me to make her a chain maille ring. We first started talking about doing a European weave similar to the one at right (available in my Etsy shop or my Artfire shop), but using gold, sterling, and copper and making the weave a little denser. The design changed drastically today when she saw the diamond shaped Japanese 12-2 ring I'm wearing. I showed it to her as an example of something and she loved it. So, now we're going with that in gold and sterling. It's going to look amazing in those metals. Plus, this is the first opportunity that I have had to work in gold, so I'm very excited.

On a personal note... As you probably gathered from my last post, I'm kind of desperate for a little bit of fun. Work has been dragging me down for a while and it's been a long, long time since I've been able to get away (we bought our house two years ago and have spent every extra dime we have dealing with some stuff). After looking at our finances, it just didn't seem like it was going to happen again this year, but I didn't give up looking. Today, I found some hotel rates over in St. Augustine that I think we'll be able to afford for a nice long weekend away. There's a beach there, a fort, a fun walking around area, and supposedly a really nice museum. Then Scott came up with a fun idea: we've been talking about getting bikes for a while now and this might be a great opportunity to get a couple to tool around the town. I probably shouldn't get excited yet because we really haven't made plans yet, but I can't help it!!

Athena's Armoury Featured on NeatoStuff.com

Very cool news: Athena's Armoury has been featured on the homepage of a shopping guide website called NeatoStuff.com! It's a ring called Finger Armour. It was made using the Euro 4-1 chain maille weave which is the very same weave used to make armor for centuries. I've been told that the ring will be on their homepage for a full week and then be available in their archives for forever and ever. You can go directly to their listing here.

If you click through on the picture on that last page it will actually bring you to the ring section of my shop, so it shows that I have other ring options available, too. Yay!

Metalsmithing Class #4: So Close to Being Done!

OK, so lots of people, not enough tools, and a few snafus later and I'm not quite done with my ring yet. I really thought that myself and two or three other people were going to be able to finish them off last week, but it just didn't happen. Oh, well!

I finished getting the back of the ring face (which, coincidentally looks more like a watch face with that big ole spitball that I had to add) nice and shiny since this was the last opportunity I'd have to get at it without anything else in the way. Then, I took the band that I made in our very first class and sawed it open at the solder joint. Thank you to everyone who warned me to wear my safety glasses while sawing. A couple of people in class got a little giggle out of me, but I'd rather that than lose an eye! I did break the blade, by the way. It didn't snap back and get me, though! Oh, and I did saw into my thumb, just a little bit, too (it didn't even bleed). Weeeeeeeeeeeee!

It was after this part that I got into a little bit of trouble (well, more trouble). I was supposed to saw about a half an inch long up the center of either side so that it was a pretty V shape where it attached to the ring face. Well, for some reason when I sawed, I veered to the right and thus made one side of my V quite a bit skinnier on one side than the other. I saw that it didn't look good, but didn't truly realize my mistake until a couple of steps later.

I wrapped the wire around a ring mandrel and shaped it to my size, taking into account that the ring face would actually be a portion of it. Well, when I went to file down the ends to get a nice flush surface in order to solder it, is when I really realized the sawing mess I made. Once I started to file, one side of the V bent back. Oops. Susan said, "No problem. You'll just attach it with a V shape on one side and the other side will be soldered in the space in between." Cool, again, I'll be making a mistake into something unique and neat looking. So, I went back to filing and trying to get my nice flush surface. The same thing happens with the V on the other side of the band. Ggggrrrrrrrrrrr. I show Susan. "Well, it will work, it just won't look as cool." Insert sad face. Here it is after the soldering:

I needed to use a third hand in order keep the band from falling over: after I got through filing it, it was just a little too thin to stay upright on it's own.

Next step will be polishing and making it shine like a mirror. Then, I'll get down to business getting that shell in place. With any luck, I'll be able to finish it this week, but who knows what will happen next! Plus, this week's class is on the 4th of July, so we'll probably be a little bit more raucous than usual. Someone mentioned bringing in sparklers. I wonder if I should bring in a lighter so we don't have to use the torch to light them. . . =)

Metalsmithing Class #3: Ring Halfway Done

That's the black mother of pearl shell I chose (which is what was giving me problems that first night) instead of the cab like everyone else (silly me). You can also see the short (yet very pretty) decorative trim which was the result of the problems from choosing the shell.

In my last class, I did wind up adding a spitball to connect the trim, but now it looks like a watch face. Hmmm. I might file some of the ball away so it's not quite so big. After getting a nice smooth surface on the bottom of the trim, I put everything together: trim around the bezel and soldered the whole thing to the sheet metal. The next step will be to file the sheet metal so that it bevels nicely against everything else, it should be seamless.

In my next class, I'll get to play with a jeweler's saw as I make the band for the ring. Two people who had gotten that far in my last class snapped three blades and one of them sawed into her thumb! Oh boy.

Metalsmithing Class #2: Starting My Ring!!

Last night I got to start my first official project in my metalsmithing class: a cabochon bezel set sterling silver ring. Susan took out a whole bunch of stones and asked us to pick our favorite. I chose a black mother of pearl, which of course is a shell and not a cabochon (a cabochon, or just cab, is a stone with a flat surface on one side and a round or dome shape on the other). It didn't dawn on me at the time that the lack of surface area might make it a bit more of a challenge to work with. . .

This ring will consist of four parts plus the stone. There is the bezel (which is the metal that holds the stone in place); there is a decorative trim which will be added around the bezel; the sheet metal shaped to be the backing to the stone, bezel, and trim; and the wire which forms the actual ring portion that goes around your finger.

The first two parts (the bezel and the trim), we already know how to make from last week's lesson. As for the challenge I mentioned earlier: with the lack of surface space, the shell kind of moves around a lot. That made it more difficult for me to get an accurately sized and shaped bezel. In addition, the wire used for the bezel is fine silver and not sterling. Fine silver does not have any copper in it and, thus, is very, very soft. I'm used to working with malleable metals (and some not so malleable metals) with my maille, but nothing quite as soft as this, so it took me a little bit of time to get used to working with it.

After a whole bunch of filing and shaping, I had something I thought would work and got down to soldering. I gotta tell ya, the soldering is the easiest part. I love the soldering. Not because of how easy it is, but because it's so cool: there's some metallurgy involved, you get to play with a torch, and, well, the colors of the flame and the metal as it changes is really pretty.

Next, I got to work on my trim. For my trim I chose a half round twisted wire -- it looks really cool. As opposed to the bezel, the trim was much harder (as in the opposite of malleable, not the opposite of easy -- then again, I guess either definition applies). Work hardened from twisting, maybe? So, I was trying to shape a somewhat harder wire around a very soft wire and found myself denting, marring, and misshaping my so nicely formed bezel. Luckily, I should be able to reshape the bezel and, hopefully, the mars will either come out or be hidden by the trim. In my attempts to get two flush edges on a half round twisted wire (I really need to get a picture of this in so you understand) I filed away a little too much wire. I walked up to Susan and showed her my problem. She didn't say that I made a mistake and needed to get some new wire. No. She pulled out this little container and suggested I add a spitball to connect the ends. (A spitball is basically someone else's oops when they melted their metal.) I was so excited! I made a booboo and it's going to turn into something totally cool! My stone/shell and trim are going to be unique, but I also get this additional little something. (She also mentioned that I chose a difficult project because of the shell vs. cabochon thing. Gggrrrrr.)

Well, that's as far as I got last night. Next week, I'll be soldering the trim with my groovy little spitball and moving onto the shank and, hopefully, the wire ring portions. After that, the only thing left to do is set the stone/shell and possibly polish. Susan said that this whole project should take about six to nine hours for a beginner (which equates to two or three classes), about three hours the second time you try, and one hour with experience. So fun!!