Georgia-Inspired Sterling and Star Diopside Project Download

Description

A metal bow makes this pendant unique and elegant.

Skills: Sweat and pick soldering, Bending heavy gauge wire

Materials:

• Deep oval cabochon, about 18x25mm
• 5mm fine silver bezel wire
• Three inches leaf-patterned wire
• 20-gauge sterling silver sheet, 1×1.25″
• Scraps of sheet sterling silver in different gauges
• Medium wire solder
• One 20-gauge 5mm jump ring
• One 3mm jump ring
• 6″ strips of soft base metal or copper wire for practice
• 8 gauge half-round sterling silver wire, 6 inches
• 12 gauge round wire, four inches
• Two 12-gauge half-round jump rings with an interior dimension of 5 mm
• 17 inches sterling silver chain
• 10mm bead
• Long 20-22 gauge sterling silver head pin with balled end

Tools:

SAFETY:

• Ventilation for close-up soldering or double-canister face mask
• Magnification
• Safety glasses

HAND:

• Painters tape
• Fine point Sharpie
• Bench pin
• Stiff paper and
• Scissors
• Ruler
• Flush cutters
• Bench scissors
• Fine tweezers
• Solder pick
• Bench block
• Shasing hammer
• Hallmark stamps
• Jeweler’s saw and 0/4 blades
• Bezel burnisher
• Half-round pliers
• Two pairs of flat-nose pliers
• Large round nose pliers
• Ring file
• Flat file
• Ring mandrel
• Non-marring hammer
• Square needle file
• Sandpaper in grits 220 to 1200
• Brass brush
• Variable-speed flex shaft with standard handpiece and foot pedal
• AdvantEdge white silicone polishing points
• Blue silicone polishing points
• Wheel with mandrel
• Cotton twine or a strip of cotton cloth
• Bench vise with rubber jaws
• 3, 5, and 5.5 mm mandrels

SOLDERING:

• Large “Jumbomax” butane torch
• Small Blazer torch
• Prip’s flux in spray bottle
• Fresh Solderite board and old chunks of the material
• Soldering pick
• A small brush and a jar of yellow ochre mixed with alcohol into a paste for solder stop
• Tweezers
• Soldering tweezers
• Copper tongs
• T-pins
• Prip’s flux
• Pickle and quench

FINISHING:

• Polishing bench or handpiece buff and Zam
• Thin copper wire
• Shot-filled tumbler and burnishing compound
• Toothbrush
• Hot, soapy water
• Dental floss

Originally Published:Lapidary Journal Jewelry Artist, December 2016