Silversmithing For Scaredy Cats

I just signed up for another silversmithing class — VERY excited! I have until early March to get some neat stones to work with — and get my nerve up! See, I took my first class over the summer, and while it was amazing and inspiring and very cool to be working with new tools and materials, I discovered it was going to take a lot more practice to ever get any good at it.

I am a scaredy cat. I’m afraid of trying something only to fail. That’s a bad thing — the trying part, not the failing part. As I wrote in a previous blog, never tell yourself you can’t do something. But that’s easier said than done for me.

So one of the ways I conquer my fears is to sign up for something so I HAVE to do it. I got to take a glass blowing class that way — just signed up and thought, “Well, now you’ve done it, you spent money, you blocked off time, DO IT.”

I’m excited about this upcoming class because now that I’ve tried silversmithing once, it’ll be easier for me to try it again. I’ll show you my creations (and mistakes along the way) in March, but thought I’d share what I did this summer:

First up is a Big A** Ring. The chalcedony cabochon is a monster.

This wasn’t supposed to be a ring. It was supposed to be a pendant. But I misunderstood a direction, and sawed the thing out of the sheet of metal, instead of sawing the metal into the size of the pendant I wanted and THEN soldering the bezel. But mistakes can lead you in different directions, so I took this as an object lesson and used thick sterling wire to create a ring shank and soldered that on. Too bad I soldered the cab in the wrong direction — it’s now more wide than tall, the direct opposite of what I wanted.

The other thing I did that was a mistake was the texturing on the sides of the bezel. I got a little too vigorous with the rotating brush and decided I really DIDN’T want to buff the marks out. By this time, I was pretty seriously tired of making mistakes and decided to Just Stop — knowing when to stop is a lesson that’s hard to learn.

Next, I made a scarf pin out of copper and sterling. I played around with how the torch could change the color of the copper, and what a “solder bloom” is — a bloom of color (that you usually don’t want) when you solder too long. But in this case, I wanted it.

The pin part I hammered and oxidized and brushed and I was really happy with how that turned out. The copper part I very nearly ruined — having learned that I could over-texture with a brush, I used the polishing brush, and shined that sucker WAY up. But the problem is, I didn’t want a mirror finish, I WANTED the rustic look. So back to the soldering iron to heat the metal back up and sand it to rough it up. It’s not as cool-looking as it was before I over-polished, but again — object lesson, and I decided to Just Stop.

I got home with a million ideas in my head, but no acetylene torch, die punches, none of that, so I couldn’t continue experimenting in that direction. BUT, I was inspired to try some different things with wire, a medium I already love and use constantly.

The copper ring was an experiment in what to do with leftovers — when I made the base of the ring, it looked unfinished, so I wrapped it with a leftover piece of copper, and it worked. The ring would look cool with oxidized silver wrapped around the copper, too.

This ring was made with another leftover piece of heavy-gauge sterling silver — I think 12 gauge, if I remember correctly. I hammed a spiral, wrapped it around a mandrel, tapped that a few times, and then hammered the remaining bit and twisted it. Then I polished it up to a mirror shine. Chunky Funky Cool, I think.

I have no idea yet what I’ll make at the class in March. I know I want to experiment more with bezels, and this time I’ll go slower and try to be more patient. I also want to play more with texturing and the rolling mill to make some bits for earrings.

Bottom line, I am taking my own advice — to not be afraid to try new things, and if I am afraid, to find ways to push myself into doing them anyway.