I spent two days of work on a fairly elaborate jewelry project this weekend. Overall, I’m pleased with how it turned out, but… well, it was a learning experience.

Metalsmithing geek talk follows:

The 24″ chain is made from 14 gauge silverplated copper wire, forged, shaped, and soldered, with a spiral “S” clasp. The earrings are made from 18 gauge silverplated copper wire, forged, shaped, soldered, with sterling post earrings and carnelian pebble drops.

The soldering went a lot more smoothly than I thought it would. The finishing - both prep before soldering, and filing/fishing post-soldering, was super time consuming and very messy. I may never get that black copper dust out from under my fingernails.

Here’s what I wish I’d known then:

Lesson 1. If you’re going to forge metal, don’t use silver plated wire, use solid sterling wire. By the time I was done working with it, the surface was mostly copper, as silver plate is a thin sheath of silver over a copper base.

Lesson 2. There is a way to de-plate a surface that has become electroplated with copper - a mix of half and half acid pickle and hydrogen peroxide. This doesn’t work when your metal IS mostly copper, and instead, seems to draw the copper to the surface more aggressively.

Lesson 3. When hammer-forming small chain links, hold them in place on your forming plate with pliers or tweezers, not fingers. I have the blood blister on my index finger to show for this one.

Lesson 4. Liver-of-sulfur, an aging/patinating agent, can go bad. When the dry stuff looks like little chunks of concrete and it won’t dissolve, it’s bad. It won’t blacken metal appreciably. It’ll still stink though!

So, when all is said and done, I’m happy with the chain, it’s a very cool look. I would not ever put this much work into it again, though, unless I was working with solid sterling or karat gold.

I had the opportunity today to make a pilgrimage to my local small town hardware store - a busy, friendly Coast Do it Best. I really enjoy wandering through its short, zigzag aisles, and no Home Depot or Ebay search is ever going to take its place!

It’s a relatively little store, maybe 3,000 square feet. Its aisles are narrow and crowded, stacked high with everything you can imagine - and a few things you can’t. It looks an awful lot like Carol Johnson’s painting, at right. I’m almost always able to find what I’m looking for there - I think the only thing I have struck out on was an old eggbeater-style hand drill, and no one carries those anymore but specialty woodworking shops.

I shop there pretty frequently for odds and ends related to jewelry making. Today I was hoping for sheet brass and copper so I wouldn’t have to make the trek to a Bremerton jewelry supply shop to replenish my stock. Yep, the hardware store had it, in multiple gauges, along with nickel silver and some really cool tubing in lots of different sizes and shapes (square, oval, round, hexagonal) that will be fun to play with.

Last time, not only did they have the acetone and wire gauge drill bits I needed, but they had metal etching acid and great soldering picks and tweezers as well. Plus, I picked up a new space heater for my frigid garage workbench!

They have a little bit of everything from generators to mole traps, and are well staffed with knowledgeable men and women that are always willing to help. They’re even respectful to we women who are hardware shopping, I’ve never gotten a “little lady” attitude from any of the hardcore tool guys there. I actually hate to ask for help, though, because wandering and poking around to find stuff - and a few things you didn’t know you were looking for along the way - is a lot of fun.

Zach - who had an end of quarter inservice day - and I worked fairly productively at my metalsmithing workbench this afternoon. I finished a project for my sister which I’m test driving for wearability - a necklace made with a brass square, copper circle and silver chain, all with an antique finish, at right:

The talented Zach completed his first project, below, a copper pendant. He learned to etch, finish the metal, connect the pendant and clasp to the chain and antique the project. I learned that the metal that retail copper lobster claw clasps are made of melt easily - at a temperature much lower than that of easy solder.

He decided to play with my new $10 Ebay letterset, and had this editorial comment to make about metalsmithing (I agree!).

After catching up with my wonderful sister Cheri last night, I’m belatedly posting pictures of our metalsmithing/jewelry class projects (in the first row) and a couple of my own much more simple pieces of work accomplished during class.

Bezel-set silver ring.	Layered, riveted, textured mixed metal pendant.
Etched brass pendant on organza ribbon.	Hammered silver ring for Zach.

Today, the Anchorage Daily News ran an article about a woman who wears a piece of jewelry with a story like no other I’ve heard.

The blue diamond she wears to remember her lost daughter very literally IS her lost daughter. She used a service called Lifegem, which can refine any organic source down to its constituent carbon, then turn that carbon into diamond.

In her case, after wondering for several months what would be the most meaningful thing she could do with her daughter’s ashes, she used them to create the gem. She had it set into a ring (not the one pictured here) which she wears proudly. When she tells the ring’s story, she gets mixed reactions - some admiring, some repelled.

The folks at Lifegem say they can use any organic carbon source for their gems - hair, if the family chooses burial, or animal, if a client wants to remember a pet with a special gem.

The whole concept is really fascinating, it’s like I’ve wandered into the pages of a science fiction story. I can’t decide whether it’s grotesque or beautiful, or a little of both. Families keep urns of ashes on their mantels, or scatter them in various places, and making ashes into artificial diamond is not so big a leap of logic. In the spectrum of funeral customs that exist throughout the world, this is only one of many, many unusual ones. In its own way, it’s fairly symbolic and meaningful - condensing a person’s physical remains into a jewel that is brilliantly beautiful and will last forever.

Still, I don’t know that I would do it for my own loved ones - or pets - even if I did have the money to spare for it.