Silversmithing update

Went for my second lesson with my grandparents last week, and they had me making some actual projects. I promised some pictures of my work, so here they are.

First is a simple silver band with darkened bands. This project helped to not only teach me about how to measure, form, and decorate a ring. During this project, I learned about the annealing process, and how it helps to create a more malleable metal, and how to apply the annealing process to make working with the metal far easier. I also was required to cut / file decorative work marks on the band, and darken the metal using a patina chemical to give it a dark aged look in the recessed areas.

This was a good first project, but i can see it still requires some further work. My cutting / filing technique needs refining, and if I were to go back and do this same ring a second time, the results would be much cleaner and more consistent.

The second project I worked on was making a set of earrings for my wife Leah. This project was designed for me to be able to practice sweat soldering, forming of wire stock, and learning to make teardrop or bead stops. I feel the result is a wonderfully simple yet elegant set of earrings.

The project was made using sterling silver wire stock, sterling silver beads, and hand made Czech glass beads. The bead section is designed to be removable from the actual post loops and interchangeable with other bead colors and combinations.

Please excuse the quality of the photos... I haven't done much jewelry photography, so I am still working out the bugs...

Challenging the creative side...

Recently I have been looking for a new way to challenge my creative side. Many days I have the urge to actually construct something. Photography and cooking usually do a good job in challenging my creative side, and can usually satisfy the urge, but sometimes I really want to do something that involves a process of creation. Perhaps this compulsion is the engineering side of me, but actually physically creating something from raw materials, the process of transforming a simple material into something that one can appreciate is something that really appeals to me.

I had mentioned this to my wife, and she told me that perhaps I should actually follow thru on a comment I had made to my grandparents about wishing I could learn some of the silversmith skills that they have. My grandparents have been making silver and stone jewelry for more then 30 years now, and make some beautiful pieces. My grandpa is getting older now, and has talked about no longer doing this fine work, as his eyes are fading and his hands sometimes no longer does what he wants. I heard him talking about this, and really felt that if I didn't take the opportunity to spend the time with them, all those skills, and knowledge could just fade away and be wasted. I didn't want that to happen, and since I am fortunate to live very near my grandparents, I asked if they would teach me.

I had my first lesson this past week, both Grandma and Grandpa were excited to be sharing their knowledge. I spent three hours learning some of the basic techniques and practicing the techniques under their watchful eyes. The time flew by, and I was absolutely having fun. I hope that this will be a long term interest for me, and that I can keep learning from them.

Anyway, I hope to sometime have some shots of some of the specimen pieces (the results of the technique practices) I make, and hopefully some actual jewelry. Heck you never know, maybe I will take some requests.

March Arrives Like a Lion

Its been a while since I last wrote in here, but if I recall correctly I think I was complaining about the lack of snow around Christmas.... Well I think I can safely say that we here in Omaha paid for all those nice days back in December al thru January and February... Then March arrived, and the "light snow" the weather guys were predicting ended up being the Blizzard of 2007 in Omaha. 13 inches of snow, combined with wind gust up to 60 miles an hour leads to one exciting snow day.

Spent a total of three and a half hours shoveling today, piles of snow as tall as me along both sides of the driveway, and they are predicting another 2-3 inches of snow in the morning!


Pictures don't really do it justice, but the piles on either side of the drive way are around 6 feet tall... Also, not real great quality, but when its blowing around 35 mph when trying to take a pic what do you expect.