Serendipity

Recently, my best friend gave me some scrap gold in exchange for a repair I did for her.  I don't like doing repairs but there are some things you just do for friends that you would not otherwise do.

I have not worked with gold much but decided to give it a try using the scrap. First I melted down some of the more mangled stuff and poored it into a wire mold.  Most of the gold missed the mold though and I ended up with a short stubby piece of wire.  I rolled it out anyway, mostly just to see how it would do.  After I rolled it to as small of diameter as I could with the rolling mill I drew it down to 18 gage (this was the gage I had used for the prototype that I made out of copper).  It all seemed to work fine but I did not have nearly enough wire to complete the project, so I remelted it with the stuff I spilled and added some gold cufflinks I had bought at a garage sale (all 14k yellow).

This time I was more careful when pouring and got most of it in the mold.  For some reason, despite preheating the mold in my kiln to the casting temperature, the gold solidified in the mold prior to it being full. I will need to do more research on that.

After acid testing the gold to make sure it was 14k, I rolled  and drew it down to 18 gage.  I used this wire to make some conical spirals.

The spirals looked nice but, being familiar with depletion gilding of sterling, I decided to try doing the same with the gold.  This is where the aha moment of a serendipitous discovery came to me. After about seven heating and pickling cycles, the gold took on the greenish look of green gold.  While I had not anticipated this, I thought it was cool so I did some research to see if I could find out why.

It appears that green gold is made by replacing the copper in the gold, silver and copper alloy normally used for 14k yellow, with silver.  So, by etching out the copper, I essentially did the same thing, although the surface layer of gold would actually be a higher karat than 14.

Here is a picture of the finished product.

I had wanted to put a pearl dangling in the center of the spirals and set a diamond in the studs but laking the diamonds, gold chain and time (they where Christmas presents) I decided they where done.

I left the finish mat because I liked the look of it.  I wish I had not rolled the wire flat.  In the mockups I hammered them.  I liked them alot better that way.

Wax Carving Article

Tomorrow is the big day.  The issue of Art Jewelry, with my wax carving article in it, will hit the news stands.  I hope the article is clear and concise but in case it is not... bring on the questions! I have created a separate page for questions regarding the article so please post your questions there.  I will do my best to answer them in a timely manner.

Nice Surprise!

I had a nice surprise in the mail yesterday.  Even though it is called the January issue and is not due on newsstands until December 6; I received two copies of Art Jewelry magazine with my article in it.  The article looks beautiful and was not too chopped up by the editor.
There is one picture that I would have liked to replace but they did not have time to make the change.  Photo 3 does not show the dividers positioned correctly it should look like this:

Overall, it was a very pleasant experience working with the magazine and I will most likely do it again.  In the mean time, I am working on a video about carving a wax model.

Lopez Island

I have spent most of the month of August on my beloved Lopez Island, WA. This is our sixth summer on the island and the longest stretch.  Next year we are thinking of staying for two months.

I have set up a small studio in the basement of the house we rent and thanks to a gracious landlord, I will be able to leave my tools here.  It is very primitive but functional.

Here is a prototype I did of a pendent.  It is a spin off of one I designed for my beginning student's first setting project. I think it turned out pretty nice but I am not crazy about the size relationship of the stone (carnelian) to the back plate (fire patina copper).  As well the overall size is a bit clunky for me. Pardon the background, I don't have a backdrop here.

Long Month

Wow, it has been a long month.  Lots going on with family (I know, what else is new?).  Anyway, in the mean time, I was able to finish a ring.  I had challenged my advanced students, at The Art Center, Highland Park, to make a ring for the call for entries for Lark's new book "500 Rings"s and I thought I should make one too.  I had it professionally photographed by a jewelry photographer named Steve Wagner.  See the link to his site in the links section of this blog.  Steve is very personable as well as professional.  He also photographed one of my students works and it turned out very nice also. I am not sure why the server keeps rejecting the image of my ring but as soon as I figure out how to, I will post it. In the mean time here is a very amateur picture by yours truly...  OK, maybe not, can't find it.  More to come.

Pewter Casting

I went to a one day pewter casting workshop over the weekend.  It was a fun day out with my friend Pam.  We drove to Mineral Point, Wisconsin (which is a great little destination that deserves a posting all of its own).  The workshop was put on by Shake Rag Alley (again deserves a post of its own) and instructed by Eric Donaldson.  After a slow start (waiting for the plaster molds to cure) we finally did some casting in the afternoon.  Here are the two things I made, a little tulip charm and a salt spoon.  Any of you who know my wax carving will notice these are rather crude for my work.  But, I had fun and learned the basic process which was the idea.  I will definitely be doing more experimentation with this process.

Article update

I finally heard back from the editor this week on my article.  She liked it and thought it was very thorough, just needs one additional side bar on raising the fine silver.  I sent this off yesterday.  I will mail the ring to them on Monday, then they will send me the contracts.  They've decided to send me two contracts, one for each part of the article (wax carving and setting the stone).  Once they get that back, they will pay me!  The other bit of news on this is that the article is now scheduled for January 2012 (vs. March 2012).

Repaired Link to HCJ

Yesterday a friend told me that the link to the Handmade Contemporary Jewelry Project (HCJ) was not working.  That is now fixed.  She also wanted to know what it is.  Well...this is a new site to me that looks very exciting.  Here is an excerpt from the site's about page:
"What are the project's aims?
1.To provide comprehensive, up-to-date information related to contemporary jewellery, contemporary silver ware, and small "object art".
2. To aid easy distribution and dissemination of submitted content. Increase exposure for those taking part."
I am going to look into it a little further, perhaps you should too.

New Page

I have updated my blog to include a separate page with soldering tips (see tab at top of blog).  I originally planned these to be quick little tips which I would submit to a magazine on an ongoing basis, I still may do that but in the mean time I thought people may be able to get some use from them.  I wanted to put them in my blog as a printer friendly page but have not been able to figure out how.  So, for now, you will have to right click and print the blog page.  As time permits, I hope to post more pages on different subjects.

I have also included a search bar on my blog.

If you have not already, sign up as a friend and you will be notified when I post.  Also, if you want, please feel free to pass this page on to people who might find it interesting.

Sweet

Last week I broke down and sprung for a Benchmate. For those of you who are not familiar. Benchmate is a tool system made by GRS that has interchangeable components. One of the nice features is its inside ring holder. I have been setting a lot of stones lately and it will make my life a lot easier. Here is a picture.

This is a practice setting that I had on bench. In the back ground you can see two additional ring holders. The one on the left goes with the Benchmate, it is very similar to the ring holder that I was using, also made by GRS, it is on the right with the gold knob on the end. The Benchmate also came with a bench pin (not shown) but I will probably keep using my old bench pin.

Been a while.

It's been a while since I posted. Those of you who know me, know last year was not a fun one around the Eslinger house. Anyway, it's a new year now and hopefully, I will be able to keep up with my blogging. The last time I posted I wrote about an article that was accepted by a magazine. The article is done and at the publisher. It is scheduled to be published in March of 2012! I will write more once they pay me but in the mean time here is a picture of the ring I did for the article.

I had a hard time photographing it. Hopefully the pro's at the magazine can do it more justice. I am currently in the process of carving waxes for alternative designs of the same basic ring.