Metals Geekery

Re: 500 Wedding Rings book

Mon, 21 Apr 2008 22:46:59 GMT

I forgot to add in my review one example of the not a Wedding Ring that really struck me:

The ring that consisted of a reverse telephone number, pierced out of sheet, so the wearer could use a stamping pad and stamp his/her phone number on Interested Parties.

HOW is this a "wedding ring"????

(One person I mentioned this to said, "Swingers!"

But I still feel it is not exactly aligned with the theme. Somehow.)

Mon, 21 Apr 2008 22:40:17 GMT

In addition to commission stuff, I got more of the stacking rings progressed. One just needs polishing, and the other needs the stone set into it and then polishing. For the first I used a prefab bezel cup, but the second was too big for that so I had to make the thing. It went quickly, but- still a lot more work than the prefab ones! It'll make a pretty ring, though, and go nicely with any of the plain bands.

Once I get these ready for pictures, and a couple of commissions finished up, I need to put some serious effort into clearing off the bench. Again. Too many pending projects! And if I don't finish some of them, I won't let myself start new ones, and there are some new ones I REALLY want to start!

Sun, 20 Apr 2008 23:51:58 GMT

While I did some misc. stuff today, my main focus was making a number of the stacking rings (just the basics), and keeping track of the time they took.

I was pleasantly surprised: I made 6 today, and they only took a but under half the time I'd guessed for the very basic versions. Obviously, adding more stuff takes longer! but I should be able to offer them at a pretty competitive price, at least for direct sale; many of the other versions seem to use lighter silver stock than I am, so that does make their cheaper to make.

I'm definitely pleased by this, because I've been wanting to find some things that I can make without a ton of time needed, and so be able to offer them affordably.

500 Wedding Rings: A Review of Sorts

Sat, 19 Apr 2008 22:07:33 GMT

Lark Books has my number, all right. All these pretty books that are totally full of great photography of (mostly) interesting pieces, and barely any text! They know that when I look at the metals books, I'm mostly looking at all the pretty pictures and ignoring any text supplied.

This books is a wonderful example in this line. Many, many pictures that are very pretty indeed.

However- after a first pass through it, I would guess that only maybe half of the rings ought to have been included based on the theme- and that's allowing the "conceptual" ones that comment on marriage as an idea in; if you excised those as well, the eligible pieces would be fewer.

In other words- if what you want is a lot of great ideas for wedding rings- well, you'll find some. And I'm glad I got the book because there are all sorts of ideas it sparked that have nothing at all to do with wedding rings, but that sound like fun. And the pictures are very pretty indeed!

But- I think it would have been better for them to either title this book as a follow-up to their first metals book in this series, "1000 Rings," OR to have actually restricted the included pieces to ones that had at least a vague relationship to wedding rings.

And while I adore mokume gane, there was rather a huge amount of it here, mostly used in fairly basic ways. This is probably a Sign of the Times or something.

Conclusion: Definitely a gorgeous book, and one that's worth seeking out and perusing multiple times. However- while there are some truly brilliant wedding rings and wedding ring concepts, that is not quite the focus of the book. Given that understanding, I would absolutely recommend it to metalworkers, because it is fabulous.

Thu, 17 Apr 2008 21:46:42 GMT

I'm pleased with what I've done in the studio today.

My heavy- and I do mean HEAVY prototype men's Mobius ring is now round. I started with more massive stock (OK, now it's starting to sound like some of that Viagra spam :P ) and forging it into shape was a lot more difficult as a result. (Yes, I did initially type "harder". *slaps self* I'm sure no one would guess that I just finished deleting my daily spam...) But it is forged, and twisted, and soldered, and made round... AND it ended up exactly the size I was aiming for, so that pleases me.

I plan to texture this one, so I will spend some time tonight contemplating that. And next time I may want to texture the band before making the ring... except that it would be difficult to texture both sides, since as I'm working on one I'd likely be damaging the other. So we shall see. But- this is why I like doing prototypes.

The usual stock I use for the Mobius rings is more unisex, and looks well on most sized fingers. I was interested in the challenge, though, of doing a massive one, for men who like that look or who have really BIG fingers- just like I'd probably use a lighter stock for someone with very small fingers, just to keep things in proportion.

And I made good progress on my prototype set of small stacking rings. So far I have resisted over-complicating them. :) I have all the soldering done on 5 of the initial 8, and a bit more on the other 3, including some construction for one since I want to use a largish, beautifully purple amethyst cab on it.

I'm very pleased with how these are going! I'm hoping to finish the stacking rings tomorrow or Sat., and then start prototypes for another "set" of jewelry; these will be pendants, earrings, and I don't know what else with a coherent theme and design, so they'll be mix-and-match like the stacking rings, though in a different way.

Wed, 16 Apr 2008 00:16:48 GMT

Oh, gods, it's been a month since I've updated. Again. Sigh.

I've been doing a lot of commission work of late, which does mean I have less to post about (I don't post anything but generalities about commissions until they're done)- so that's part of it.

I'm pretty enthusiastic, though, because in the past few days i've been getting a ton of ideas for nifty stuff. Today I started work on one of the concepts, and I may have stuff to show on it in a few days. Yay! I generally tend to elaborate and over-engineer stuff, so I've been trying to work against that temptation of late; it increases the work and the cost, but does not necessarily improve the resulting piece in ways that anyone but me cares about. :P

So- I hope to have some new stuff up in the next week or so, either on my website, or Etsy, or both.

Sat, 15 Mar 2008 01:41:46 GMT

Also: I have sent nice un-messed-with pics of my enamel smileys (plique and cloisonne) to the Lark "500 Enameled Objects" book submissions. The pictures are excellent, and yet I have little hope of getting in; I think they are way too goofy.

But! I entered them!

Fri, 14 Mar 2008 23:58:33 GMT

Done! I finished Mobius Ring #3, which I am very happy with indeed. There will, I expect, be pictures within a few days.

Also lots of work on various other projects, but less spectacular than actually fininshing 1 of them!

By the way, I've just listed this blog on Technorati, so if anyone with a similarly listed blog wanted to post a link to this- or to http://www.beemused.com , our beekeeping journal- I would be appreciative and will reciprocate. Thank you!

Thu, 13 Mar 2008 21:33:34 GMT

Eep. I just realized that today is the 13th, which (am I not brilliant for deducing this?) makes tomorrow March 14th. Otherwise known as the postmark deadline for submitting entries to Lark's "500 Enamels" upcoming book.

And since J was nice enough to spend far too much time getting really good pics of my Smileys, it would be stupid of me to miss the deadline. Right?

So I am now burning the CD, and apparently also need to fill out a form and print pics of the CD files.

I am not really expecting to get in the book. Yeah, I'm very proud of and happy with my Smileys- but they're very goofy, and in general this series has not inclined toward the goofiness. Still- they're some of the best work I've done, and I'm proud of them, and since I had too many other commitments to do something specific for this book... well, these are it.

(I did do several pieces specifically for the first jewelry book in this series, "500 Brooches," and none of them got in and I sulked. Although I'm proud of those, too- the "Revelations" brooches on my site are some of them- and there's another set that I plan to re-work the basic designs into insanely ambitious Art Nouveau-inspired pieces. So it was not a dead loss. And yet, I sulked. :) )

In other news- more work on various Mobius rings. One's about ready to photograph. I'm still wrestling with the sterling/Pt one, since I'd really like to get a damn nice finish on it and the metal is not allowing that; as I sand away some flaws, others are exposed.

I made Pass #1 of twisting some of the sterling/Pt for filigree. It sort of held up OK, but broke where I'd put it in the vise rather than at the end I'm twisting, which is unusual. I need a much tighter twist, but it does not seem to need annealing yet, so I'll twist it more tomorrow.

Wed, 12 Mar 2008 21:41:11 GMT

Ah, polishing. I really don't mind it- it can even be fun- when I'm polishing 1 or 2 pieces and doing other things with other pieces. Right now, though, I'm at the polishing stage of the next few pieces I need to have done ASAP, so today was all polishing, all the time. (At least tomorrow I'll probably be setting a stone or 2!).

My enthusiasm was not helped by the work I was doing on the sterling/Pt mobius ring. As I began working on the flattened part of the band, some flaws started showing up there, too; I'm pretty sure it was the relics of the porosity again, albeit modified by the rolling process. They were definitely not tool marks! It was frustrating, since I'd previously been doing much the same thing with gold and sterling, and those showed no such issues (and so were much more fun to polish!).

I think I've polished and burnished past these flaws enough so that the ring will be OK, though I'd be hesitant about its ability to fulfill a commission to my standards. Getting a really good, smooth, mirror-polish on the outside of the band is very important for this ring, because I want to see how the metal holds up to heavy wear. The twist, with its sculptural aspects, will also be a good test, so I want that as perfect as possible so I can see if the metal deforms in wear.

Internal flaws in the metal are a problem with this style, since I need to do a fair amount of sculpting in the pre-polish stage to make the lines flow that way I like. That means removing metal... and it's one thing if the metal is solid, and quite another when removing the surface reveals flaws! Then I have to balance working on the flaws with getting the proper sculpted lines, and that makes my brain hurt! Seriously- it means a constant evaluation of 2 separate criteria, and that is not fun.

Fortunately the gold and silver are both a delight to work with, so it was not all frustration and angst! Both are turning into very pretty rings indeed. (Well, so is the sterling/PT one, it's just giving me more grief.)

Tomorrow I should probably start twisting the light-gauge sterling/Pt wire for fiigree. I figure that if the wire has internal flaws, it'll break in places that I would not expect- so it should be an interesting test.

J has been discussing the issues I've found with the sterling/Pt guys, and I have a couple of things I ought to do to see if I can provide them with samples of the problems I've encountered. I flat-out refused to send them the ring I've put enough work into it now that I'm not giving it away! Plus, I have mostly minimized the problems at this point. And it'll still be interesting to see how well it holds up to wear.

I've decided to put one of the dark-red diamonds in it. The blues and yellows were just kinda boring with the metal color- too pastel.

I only stopped because my eyes were getting fizzy from so much close work, and my right elbow was complaining. Apparently I torque it into some weird angle when polishing.

Mon, 10 Mar 2008 21:29:54 GMT

There is something about the position in which I hold the flex handpiece while polishing that is making my elbow hurt. I suppose I'm twisting it or something. I had to stop work today because pretty much everything on the list at the moment is one flavor or another of polishing, and I don't want to get some weird repetitive strain injury or something!

Still, I got some nice stuff done. One commission piece isn't finished but is getting close, and I plan to send the owner a pretty picture of it in its current state; the last one I sent was of it in a very ugly state indeed, so this will be better. :)

I did not touch the sterling/platinum ring today, because I am still annoyed with it. Poor thing- it's not its fault that it's got porosity! However, I'm stiff quite irritated with the situation.

I must say, though- I do like this shape of wire for ring shanks. I'm going to do some more experimenting with making forged wire for shanks. I feel a variant on the Confetti Rings coming on, perhaps, and/or some stacking rings.

Sun, 09 Mar 2008 21:07:31 GMT

More good studio time today- made progress on some commission work and some of the mobius rings.

...Which leads me to my update on the sterling/platinum blend. I am not at all sure it's ready for prime time. See, as I was starting the pre-polishing on my ring, I was doing some sculpting to refine the shape... and I encountered porosity. Porosity that was nowhere near the seam. Porosity that had clearly been IN the mill product and was revealed when I filed and abraded some of it away. For the record, there was none in the areas I'd milled myself to get the profile I want (I start with heavy round wire and forge it out to get an oblong shape); the holes appeared in the edges, where they are awkward to get past but which metal had not been squished hard by me in the forming process.

So. I have honestly never encountered porosity in a mill product before! I'm assuming that rather than rolling/drawing it down to get the heavy gauge I needed, they didn't do much more than lightly draw an ingot; any more reduction would have squished the pores, at least (though they would still be there and be weakening the metal).

I'm going to follow through with making the ring, of course; it's getting so close to done anyway. And based on the color I'm seeing while pre-polishing, I'm not sure what I'm going to think of it; it looks a little bluer and more "chrome-y" than other silvers I'm familiar with, which for me is not a good thing. We'll see what it's like once it's polished up to a nice high shine.

And I have to decide what color diamond I'm going to set in it. I've settled on a roughly 1.5mm size, and I have a mixed-color parcel that has a couple of very deep garnet-reds, a lot of light blues to aquas, and some yellows. Since I'm not a yellow fan I'm ruling those out, but am undecided on the red vs. the blue. I adore sky blue, but the red makes a great contrast with the metal...

I decided to make it "finger-shaped" (which is sort of a round-cornered trapezoid) rather than round. I did that on one of the other ones I'm working on, and I really like the way the twist flows with that shape- it's a lovely, sculptural effect.

However, pretty though the ring will be, I'm thinking I can't really do much more with this alloy. I can't afford to get the bulk of the work done on a piece, only to encounter porosity as i start to finish it. This is a shame, since J tells me that silver is making a comeback because of the cost of gold, and if this had lived up to the enthusiasm I've seen about it, it would have made an excellent material to create in and to offer to commissioners. As it is, though, I'd be very concerned about using it. I'll use up what I have- might as well!- but, I think, only in stuff I do for myself, for gifts, or on spec; that way, if I run into a problem even at the end, it won't mess up a commission piece.

Sat, 08 Mar 2008 23:22:34 GMT

A good day in the studio today! I did some tricky soldering, and made good progress on several commission pieces.

One of the soldering items was my first soldering of the sterling/platinum alloy, using the solder the company sells for such. It went well, for the most part... but everything got far hotter than is usual or even possible for sterling! We had some serious glowing going on, and regular sterling would have been pretty fried. This stuff was great, though, and ended up with pretty much no oxidation- interesting!

The solder melts and flows at a temp way higher than hard silver solder. I'd have been more freaked out by this if I hadn't encountered the same thing with palladium white gold. As it was, I forged ahead, and things look good right now.

I'll mention that the solder- sold in thin sheets- seems to be very brittle indeed, and I hope this does not give me problems when I go to round my ring. But then- this is why this ring is an experiment, and one I'll be keeping and wearing myself! The main reason is to see for myself the way the metal acts with heavy wear, but the fact that no one but me will be inconvenienced if things get wonky is a Good Thing. I do not like to explore serious learning curves on commission pieces!

Mon, 03 Mar 2008 04:17:19 GMT

I am very pleased with myself today. I got v2.0of a commission well and truly started; I got the mobius ring prototype I'm making for myself (out of the sterling. platinum alloy) annealed since it arrived looking pretty damn hard; and I got the stone set in a third mobius ring, in a way that sets off the stone and the shape of the ring nicely. I'd known the theory of this setting technique- which leaves the sides of the stone exposed- for ages, but am pleased that my first pass at creating it worked well. Pictures will be forthcoming, since the third ring is one I've made on spec; it still has some finishing to go, though.

I also made progress on some other commission pieces white #1 was annealing and pickling. A very good day!

Sat, 01 Mar 2008 23:39:53 GMT

We may have gotten the problems with the billing for the solder from ABI settled. Then again, we may not have. Which means it's still a pending hassle, and making it take ever more time to get the metal from them at the correct price- which adds expense and hassle- is not (shall we say) an advantage from my point of view. Time is, in fact, money, and the more time we spend dealing with suppliers to try to get materials at the correct price, the more it costs us. to use those materials. At this point, I think I would need to add at least a 50% surcharge over the usual costs to use metals from them- because it'll cost us that much to GET the stuff at the supposed price. Grr.

Apart from that, I've had a good day of work. I decided my approach to one commission wasn't working the way I wanted it to, and have re-started it. I've also been finishing a prototype ring for eventual sale and website display, and it's turning out quite nicely. Other bunches of this and that, of course, but I'm pleased with how a number of things are progressing.

Argh. ABI...

Thu, 28 Feb 2008 03:58:02 GMT

On the plus side- we finally got metal (the sterling/platinum alloy) from ABI. I'd originally ordered the stuff about 6 weeks ago, and they finally sent it. :/

On the minus side- we ordred some solder as well, and we asked for a pennyweight, and they sent us a pennyweight... and charged us for an ounce (20 times as much).

J will be calling them tomorrow and discussing this.

Now- he says I ought not to be put off from using the stuff if it ends up having atractive working qualities; he'll deal with the company. And I appreciate this but... damn. I really believe that ordering supplies should not be such a huge amount of hassle as these guys are making it!

And, from my readings on Orchid, this is not exactly atypical. Unfortunately.

More Sterling/platinum woes

Tue, 26 Feb 2008 21:43:18 GMT

We finally heard back from ABI, the company that makes and/or sells the sterling/Pt alloy. They were apologetic (as seemed appropriate, since it's now approaching 6 weeks since we ordered the stuff, and we have yet to see it). They made various promises, including using the spot prices when we ordered rather than the spot prices now (thing have gone up in the past month and a half), and they'd absorb the shipping, and I'd get it today.

Today is very close to over.... and I have no metal from them. And I've been here all day, except for an hour in which I took cats to the vet.

I am quite frustrated! The stuff does have lovely working specs- but if I can't GET any of it, the specs do me no good at all! I know a lot of people that really love white metals, and i think this would be a lovely option to offer them- but I can't offer it when I can't get the metal!!!! Argh!

Sun, 24 Feb 2008 00:49:49 GMT

I have been filled with Goodness and Virtue, and have done yet more web-work. Some new items and better pictures of others are now up on both AFMetalsmith and Etsy.

Fortunately for my sanity, I also worked in the studio. Including soldering stuff (fire pretty!) and forging (ooo! hitting things!). Granted i also did some persnickety piercing, but whacking stuff was good for my soul. As was lighting stuff on fire.

Thu, 21 Feb 2008 22:54:33 GMT

Oh, dear. Another too-long gap between posts...

I have accomplished things, though! I am now entirely through my backlog of photos taken but not posted. Yay, me! Mind, I still have a pile of stuff that needs photos... but I've at least done what I've got.

So please check out the new stuff on my site, some of which is for sale either there or on Etsy!

I've been doing a lot of commission work, too, but won't be posting about it until it's done. I'm finishing up a few things, and am maybe halfway through a later one; I have a couple more in the pipeline as well, which is a nice situation to be in.

I've been encountering some real frustration, though. I posted a while back about wanting to order some of the newish sterling/platinum alloy from ABI Precious Metals. And... I still don't have it. What's more, I have no idea when or if I'll ever get it. It's now been over 5 weeks, we've submitted paperwork for an account (and heard nothing back), we've made arrangements- supposedly- to buy a small amount and pay with a credit card- and this was several weeks ago, and there has been no sign of the metal, not have we succeeded in contacting them to ask what's going on.

So- I'm not happy. At this point I'm almost hoping I hate the stuff- because even if I love it, I sure can't use it if it required a couple of months of hassling to maybe get some!

Sun, 10 Feb 2008 00:40:24 GMT

I've spent the past week "entertaining" the flu, and it totally wiped me out. Thank goodness I'm on the mend now, and able to get back to work!

I spent today doing prep for several commission pieces. Prep isn't as much fun as the actual work, but it's necessary and important, and I was glad to be able to get to it at last. I'm very excited about a number of my current projects. :)

Now- here's hoping I can get some sleep in the next few days! I'm definitely itching to get going on a number of things.

New books

Wed, 16 Jan 2008 00:48:13 GMT

I received some wonderfully inspirational metals books recently!

So far, my favorite is Masters: Gemstones: Major Works by Leading Jewelers (Masters). Wow! While some of the work isn't to my taste (hardly a surprise- there's a huge range of styles represented), it's all beautifully made and nicely photographed. Several artists have spurred ideas that I can apply to my work- as well as giving me somethng to aspire to in terms of sheer gorgeousness! So: highly recommended.

I will probably post more about other books soon. Meanwhile, when I find a metals resource I really like (books and DVDs, anyway), I add it to my aStore, generally with notes.

Sat, 12 Jan 2008 22:52:58 GMT

It was SO nice to be back in the studio again! This past week has been one of lots of prep work, and research, and marketing, and not nearly enough metal. And tomorrow will be another no-metal day, since we have social stuff going on. (Which will be fun and everything... but...!)

Not that I got tons done. I did get a recent Rio order mostly sorted out. The stones are in my inventory system now (but not the boxes), and the tools are put away. I am excited about the projects that the stones will be in, and looking forward to getting to work on them!

I did work on polishing the Russian filigree pendant, and it's close to done. It's not completely done because I designed it to have something dangling off the bottom, and (basically) hate everything I have that could do that. A friend's offered to let me check out some small heart beads (rose quartz and onyx, I think), and they may be just the ticket since the basic shape is a freeform heart. If I end up not liking them, I'll do a drop with 2-3 graduated-sized beads, probably black and red (black onyx or coral, hematite, with garnet in the middle if it's 3).

I'm also eager to see if the wooden dapping set I got will help with those tricky double-spirals on my Viking beads. When I fused a bunch of them last time, the elements got stuck on... but several of the spirals sort of unwound a bit and sproing!ed out. I could tap them back into place with my steel dapping set... except that would flatten the tops of the twisted wires, which is not the look I'm going for. So: wooden daps. I feel optimistic about this. :)

Plus: next time I have some quality studio time I can get started on some of the experimental pieces I've been wanting to do. Joy! There's several setting techniques I want to practice, plus more filigree, and making progress on several projects that have been stalled for a while awaiting one thing or another.

And, of course, starting work on some new commissions! Fun stuff!

Sun, 06 Jan 2008 22:49:47 GMT

I think the soldering's done on my first Russian filigree piece. Woohoo! I have to say: while the tiny solder chips worked OK, medium paste solder was a delight. I used it to finish up the last few bits that hadn't wanted to solder previously, and it worked like a charm. Then I flipped the piece over and gave it a nice soak in a fairly gentle flame, just till the solder ran, to get rid of any clumps. There's still some clean-up to do, of course, and maybe a pass or 2 of depletion gilding- but the soldering's done! I'm going to use 3 jump rings as a bail, I think: 2 round or square-wire ones on either side, and a twisted-wire one in the middle. I'll probably not solder them shut, since they'll be fairly hefty (and 3 of them!). I'll probably add a dangle; I have some attractive baroque pearls that would look nice.

Did more fusing of the double-spirals onto the Viking beads. Progress is being made, albeit slowly. And I thought these would be the easy ones! Ha! :)

Also: it always surprises me how much time paperwork sorts of things take. I have not been taking that into account. Today, while waiting for things to pickle, I spent time in catalogs and on the Web pricing stones for several commissions; all told, it was probably at least 45 min. And then there's communicating with the people who commission stuff! I'm not complaining- I love working closely with people, partly because then I know they're getting exactly what they're dreaming of, and partly because working with other people's aesthetics is, frankly, a fun challenge for me! but it does take time. I need to remember that, because it IS an appreciable amount of the work I do- even when I'm not physically in the studio, making stuff.

As is design work, on the computer and not. I spent some good time yesterday and today on computer design stuff. I now have a bunch of pieces ready to be masked for etching, and hope to put some time this evening into either working on a pendant with a cephalopod theme, and/or on an absinthe spoon.

Russian filigree solder

Wed, 02 Jan 2008 03:11:19 GMT

It seems that there is an outfit that makes the solder formulation recommended in Lansford's video for Russian filigree. I don't know that this is a Deep Dark Secret- but I don't know that it's not, either. So if you have the video and are intrigued, you can find the info on the Forum on her site- or email me, and I'll send it to you.

This is in ingot, not powder, form, sadly, but that's still a great improvement over the formula itself. I was not planning on doing anything that involved melting zinc until it was comfy to do it outside. Zinc fumes are NOT something one should breathe! It'll be a nuisance to file the ingot into powder, but not toxic like melting zinc.

Happy New Year!

Tue, 01 Jan 2008 23:06:40 GMT

I had a nice day in the studio today, mostly soldering. I even did more hot work on the piece that exploded! and have no additional explosions to report, thank goodness.

And I have (mostly) been very good indeed about wearing goggles for soldering. I have even been wearing my dark goggles, which protect they eyes from IR rays. Yay for virtue. I am still not a fan of wearing goggles, but I am more aware of their importance after the BAM!

So, today was a Soldering Day. I made progress on getting the setting properly soldered onto the spiculum, though it needs another pass. Sigh. (And then the mending and the findings...)

I got several tiny double spirals fused onto my Viking bead bits. I also braved (expensive) disaster and opened my vial of purchased argentium granules, and decanted some into a smaller tin for use on the other Viking bead. Out of interest, I weighed them, and the tin's got about $9 worth in it; I'm hoping that'll about do it for that bead, but could be wildly wrong. (FYI, I love the small "watchmaker's" tins from Lee Valley for granule-storage; the lids fit tightly enough that the granules don't get stuck between lid and vessel, and the clear tops mean I can label them easily. Plus you can get 10 small tins that fit neatly into a larger tin, which is fabulous for storing a range of sizes.)

And I worked on my first Russian filigree piece! I'm making my own version of the first project on the video, and now have the basic structural filigree pieces in. Since I don't yet have any of the special solder, I'm using tiny chips of medium, and that's working OK. (I tried hard for the first one, and a delicate tendril melted despite my care. Phooey.) I'm also designing somewhat (ahem) more ambitious projects, but I'll wait until I've finished this one to start any of them. Yes. Probably. I suppose. :)

And, in the non-soldering area, I've got the January thimble polished now, and ready for the garnet to be set. I may even have it done while it's still January! (Actually- yes I will. It's a priority at the moment.)

Plus I set another 2mm sapphire in my current "eternity-style" ring. It's going OK.