The Best Laid Plans

I did get all the earrings done yesterday! Hurray! And I learned exactly why people make sketches, create production lines and basically think first.

Anyone else see Daisy Duck's feet in these earrings?

I had all the components and a vague idea of what to do with them. But reality is so different. One element that I was sure would be fabulous - wasn't. But another I hadn't even though of was! I made an earring wire design that I'd never done before and ruined some sterling wire trying to get it right. Then I got the bright idea to experiment with copper wire first. Duh.

I'm happy with these and might actually make more, now that I know how they'll turn out. But I also think I'm going to do some drawing this afternoon.

This morning I wanted to get the ring done so I can have it photographed for the Annual. One would think it would be easy. I've made a million of 'em. Okay. Slight exaggeration, but you get my drift. The hole in the coral flower was larger than 20g though, so I wasn't able to fall back on my old trick of using earring posts for the wire. This was my first time just using a simple butt end cut wire. And it was much easier than I thought. What was I afraid of before???

The only real tricky part was figuring out how to set it up. I ended up using Chris' Soldering Tool to hold the ring in place (assisted by a groove dug into my board) and a third hand to hold the wire onto the ring, which I always do with the earring post. Worked perfectly.

Later I remembered that I could have drilled a little hole in the top of the ring to fit the wire into. That might have made a better solder join. But I think this one will be fine. I set the flower onto the post with resin. I usually use 2 part epoxy, but the resin was out and I thought I'd try it. Anyone know a reason for me to take it off and set it with the epoxy instead? (edit) Well, the resin didn't cure of course. How did I think the light would get up into the hole? I re set it with 2 part, 5 minute epoxy and it's great.

Trying to solder a post into the cavity did not work! At least with this set up. I think it might have worked had I placed the piece on a trivet and torched from underneath. As it is I ended up drawing a ball on the end of the wire and the solder refused to flow.

I had the resin out to set another flower into the cavity of a bead I made as a class sample. I turned it into a brooch by soldering a wire catch and a fine silver tube to hold the pin stem. It was all going so well until after I cured the flower/uv resin I was using. I put the steel wire into the tube and tried to bend it when suddenly the tube broke in half! I think it was too short and wouldn't take the torque from the bending (steel wire is realllly hard to bend). I had also scratched the tube somehow and had polished the scratch out. Maybe I took away too much material.

Now I have to get out the Attack, remove the resin and flower, torch off the patina and re solder another tube. Ah well. Such is the life of a jewelry maker. Nothing is easy.