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Post by opalpyrexia on Mar 4, 2018 11:58:42 GMT -5
A customer of mine brought her quartz cab and requested that I make a drop pendant for her. I had to do a lot of thinking about this one as I had never dealt with that shape before. She also wanted the design to incorporate the effect of the black tourmaline needles. I had previously done a redesign job for another individual that required removal and shortening of two horizontal tongues of sugilite. Those had been epoxied in bezels that included pins that fit into holes drilled into the sugilite. So I figured that a vertical drop would definitely require a pin. BTW, I want to thank those of you who previously posted their stone drilling techniques. They were very helpful. She also wanted a faceted stone above the quartz and chose a small pink sapphire. The last soldering job was to add a hidden bail, also per her instructions. Until I was ready to add the bail I had no idea what to do, but settled on a short piece of tubing. I gave it a flat with a parallel pliers inserted from each end and followed that with sanding it flat for soldering. The upper structure is curved and tilts back by a few degrees, making the bail completely hidden. Soldering the bezel and attaching it to the base plate were done with hard solder. All other operations used medium solder. The grooves in the upper silver were cut with a graver. I was very worried about how to secure the pendant and hammer or push the bezel down against the quartz. Finally I decided to freehand it. I set my hammer handpiece on its strongest setting and, holding the pendant in my other hand, tapped the bezel edges down. That worked really well. Holding the pendant helped me to control the handpiece and absorb some of the impact.
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Post by Pat on Mar 4, 2018 12:10:38 GMT -5
Lovely result! Thanks for all the explanations.
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NDK
Cave Dweller
Member since January 2009
Posts: 9,440
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Post by NDK on Mar 4, 2018 12:12:06 GMT -5
Beautiful piece! Thanks for the play by play too. I attempted to make a similar setting from copper once. In my very limited experience it ended badly and I set it off to the side til I get more experience lol
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Post by opalpyrexia on Mar 4, 2018 12:29:39 GMT -5
Beautiful piece! Thanks for the play by play too. I attempted to make a similar setting from copper once. In my very limited experience it ended badly and I set it off to the side til I get more experience lol Thank you. This one went together fairly easily, but I have my disasters now and then, too. I don't know what issue you ran into, but one bit of advice I received from an expert metal smith has helped with multi-piece designs like this. After each (or no more than two) soldering operations I quench the piece. Without doing that the repeated heating and slow cooling causes the metal grains to grow and the metal to become brittle. I had had one design that literally fell apart while doing one of the last solder joins.
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Post by rockjunquie on Mar 4, 2018 15:47:41 GMT -5
That is an exceptionally beautiful piece! Very well done. Thanks for the post!
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Post by fernwood on Mar 4, 2018 17:59:15 GMT -5
Yes, very nice. Love the techniques you used. Also, how detailed the customer was on explaining what was needed.
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Post by toiv0 on Mar 6, 2018 18:20:55 GMT -5
Love it, great work..! I wish I had the patience, the hammer is always calling my name. The hole in the quartz and the peg is to give a little extra hold? I have never done that. Just some glue.
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Post by beefjello on Mar 6, 2018 19:29:47 GMT -5
What a unique and gorgeous piece! Thanks for the showing the step by step process.
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Post by opalpyrexia on Mar 6, 2018 20:24:35 GMT -5
Love it, great work..! I wish I had the patience, the hammer is always calling my name. The hole in the quartz and the peg is to give a little extra hold? I have never done that. Just some glue. Thanks. I agree with you. I think that I could have gotten by with just the epoxy and the bezel tightening. The sugilite pendant that I reworked a few years ago definitely needed pins because the sugilite "wings" were sticking out horizontally. Here's the before and after — I'd been making jewelry for only a couple years when I did that for my wife's principal. I showed it to an old jeweler, a friend who's now passed, and his response was, "That was very brave." I took that to mean that it was pretty stupid of me to take the redesign job, and that I was very lucky that nothing went sideways.
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Post by toiv0 on Mar 6, 2018 21:48:05 GMT -5
Love it, great work..! I wish I had the patience, the hammer is always calling my name. The hole in the quartz and the peg is to give a little extra hold? I have never done that. Just some glue. Thanks. I agree with you. I think that I could have gotten by with just the epoxy and the bezel tightening. The sugilite pendant that I reworked a few years ago definitely needed pins because the sugilite "wings" were sticking out horizontally. Here's the before and after — I'd been making jewelry for only a couple years when I did that for my wife's principal. I showed it to an old jeweler, a friend who's now passed, and his response was, "That was very brave." I took that to mean that it was pretty stupid of me to take the redesign job, and that I was very lucky that nothing went sideways. Yep, I like the story as much as the piece which is awesome. Agreed sometimes brave is synonymous with stupid and being lucky is nice sometimes also. I think your attention to detail is pretty darn good. Its a pleasure to see your work, makes me not want to put any of mine on...
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Post by opalpyrexia on Mar 7, 2018 12:28:54 GMT -5
I think your attention to detail is pretty darn good. Its a pleasure to see your work, makes me not want to put any of mine on... Thanks, but I certainly hope that you're kidding about being reluctant to post. Unfortunately, I didn't take photos of the back of the sugilite pendant. That's where my brave (stupid) work was done. The jeweler had added twin bail loops on a strip that extended across to the middle of both cabs. I had to desolder that structure and replace it with a single bail in the center behind the diamonds. I did lots of research on how to protect diamonds from a torch, said a little prayer, swallowed several times, and hit it with the flame... ...it still bothers me when I think of all the things that might have gone wrong. I was very lucky.
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Post by hummingbirdstones on Mar 7, 2018 12:49:08 GMT -5
Beautiful work on that pendant! I love the lines you engraved in the silver. Incorporating them really complements the tourmaline needles well.
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Post by opalpyrexia on Mar 7, 2018 13:23:24 GMT -5
Thanks, hummingbirdstones . You have some very beautiful cabs on your website — especially the opals!
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NRG
fully equipped rock polisher
Member since February 2018
Posts: 1,630
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Post by NRG on Mar 7, 2018 14:46:52 GMT -5
Super cool!
Love the reflection of the inclusion crystals on the silver. Bravo!
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Post by hummingbirdstones on Mar 7, 2018 19:44:07 GMT -5
Thank you, opalpyrexia. It's been a while since we added new stones. Life got in the way. We have a revamped website in the works (one that's mobile compatible), so we'll be updating everything soon, hopefully.
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Post by opalpyrexia on Mar 7, 2018 23:00:20 GMT -5
We have a revamped website in the works (one that's mobile compatible), so we'll be updating everything soon, hopefully. Please let me know when it's active. Once in a while I'll get asked for something specific in an opal and I never seem to have what the prospect is looking for, but I'd be happy to offer a referral.
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Fossilman
Cave Dweller
Member since January 2009
Posts: 20,681
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Post by Fossilman on Mar 8, 2018 10:55:34 GMT -5
Very awesome work.... An Artist..
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Post by melhill1659 on Mar 8, 2018 15:49:05 GMT -5
WOW!!! Thank You so much for sharing!!
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Post by hummingbirdstones on Mar 8, 2018 21:43:16 GMT -5
We have a revamped website in the works (one that's mobile compatible), so we'll be updating everything soon, hopefully. Please let me know when it's active. Once in a while I'll get asked for something specific in an opal and I never seem to have what the prospect is looking for, but I'd be happy to offer a referral. The current website is active, just not mobile compatible. Everything still works on it. I'll let you know when the revamped site is active. Thanks!
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