Silversmith's Guild Newsletter: What's Happening in the Night Classes?

What's Happening in the Night Classes?

2 comments:

Karen Atherton24 October 2012 at 15:06
Beautiful job, Jo and Crystal! I love the slide shohw format and would like to see lots more. It's great to see the stunning stuff you are doing in the Level Two class.
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Jo24 October 2012 at 16:00
Let's have some pictures from your Level One Class too and I will put them up:)
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Tell us what you think, add your event, or ask a question. We would love to hear from you.

Deb Smithson

Deb is currently finishing up Hagley College jewellery design class, and trying to accumulate enough gear to do basic construction at home.

"I am an at home mum with two kids under 4 and completed the Guild’s advanced night class in the last term of 2011. I’m pretty capable at the construction side of silversmithing now, but am still building confidence to make more creative and less commercial looking jewellery. I seem to be drawn to objects that require quite complicated construction but look simple, often to my own detriment! The build up to the new facility opening is very exciting and I look forward to seeing familiar faces soon."

Spoon Rings

How did you get on with these? I had a go and learnt several things.

1. If you heat the spoons up too much the silver plate bubbles up and completely lifts off the bowl of the spoon when hammering it flat

2. You don't need to hammer the bowl flat before shaping the ring on your mandrel, you can just cut it off and smooth the corners etc before shaping your ring

3. It helps to anneal the spoon after sawing and filing

4. My nylon hammer is too dainty and I need a bigger one!

5. There is more than one way (appologies cat lovers) to skin a cat and almost anything goes!!

Here are some piccys - where are yours? email me a few and we can compare spoons and outcomes.

About the Following Clips

I enjoy watching how other people do things - it helps me learn new stuff, encourages me to think about things differently, and just plain helps me understand how to do stuff!
There bis a clip on making a ring from a spoon, making a cast ring with a charcoal block and grins of fine silver, and making a cast ring with sterling silver. I have a fair bit of scrap at this point so I am going to play a bit, ignoring the fine silver requirement and the possibility that one of the torches used is hotter and may use an oxygen inlet, and see what happens!
A word of caution though.One of the clips puts their hot metal object into their pickle without cooling it in water first - I understand this is a nono! Safety issues abound, splashes that will damage you, and nasty fumes that are poisonous and may damage your eyes and breathing passages - so cool things off first!!
Take some photos of your efforts and I will of mine and let's have a mini exhibition - it'll be fun!

Blogs for September

The following list of blogs includes three Etsy shops that sell some interesting pieces of fun jewellery using some different sorts of materials that we can collect in our day to day journeys. Something a bit different that might get those creative thoughts rolling!

I have included HandShake where there is a report of a mentorship between artist Judy Darragh and jeweller Kristin D'Agostinoe. I found this fascinating - who amongst us wouldn't enjoy an opportunity to have someone challenge us and push us into new directions?

I hope you are enjoying my little travels about the internet - send me some of yours to share.

Interesting Blogs

Here are another couple of blogs you might like to visit:

http://kitandcaboodle.ning.com/profiles/blog/list

There are New Zealand groups amongst the Aussies, and it looks interesting to me

http://www.newzealanddesignblog.com/2011/04/jewellery-design-kester-black.html

If you click on different words that light up as you scroll over them you get to visit more places - I love the way you can travel into all sorts of different sites this way, but then I also enjoy looking through a thesaurus and digging up some new vocab!

A Workshop Survey by Cora Baillie

Cora Baillie is one of our fellow guild members.

"I have the opportunity to set up a new home workshop - almost from scratch.
Before I start, I would like to ask for your advice - on physical set up, lighting, outlook, gear and tools - what ever you want to mention.
Please email the answers to the following questions. I will collate them and write them up in an article for the Silversmiths Guild newsletter."

What do you like best about your workshop*?

What's next best?

What would you change if you could?

What else do you find useful?

* Please take "your workshop" to mean your "current or most recent workshop".

Email answers to Cora Baillie CBBaillie@gmail.com

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What's Happening in the Night Classes?

2 comments: