And here it is!
The finished piece! I used a bit of light blue gilder's paste on the front to give it a bit of color. The design was cleaned up a bit more after this picture was taken, and was given to my mom soon after. I forgot to get a true final picture.
This one was a lot of fun to make, even with all the troubles. I had to saw the two pieces apart once after accidentally soldering it closed. There was also the frustration in getting the hinge properly attached. The two outer knuckles of the hinge had to be attached to one plate, while the middle hinge was attached to the other and yet they needed to be soldered perfectly in line in order to fit the hinge pin. *whew!*
I really want to try making one of these again on my own, but I'll definitely need to acquire quite a few tools before that can happen. Ah, well!
Oh, and I should mention... I got a great shine on this piece after putting it in a tumbler with stainless steel shot and some dawn soap for a half hour or so. Definitely an important finishing step if you want your piece to really sparkle!
So, I think it went quite well today! My first oxidizing experience seems to be a success! It was crazy how quick the oxidizing process takes. As soon as I dropped the metal pieces in, they were already turning black! Here are some photos:
Before:
After:
Later after a bit of polishing:
I seriously love how these turned out!
It's been a bit again since my last update, but this next one should be a good one! I have decided to try oxidizing both copper and silver using liver of sulfur. This experiment will hopefully be taking place tomorrow.
I found this page here that explains the process pretty well.
I will have both before and after pictures to post tomorrow! Should be exciting!
I tried the wire wrapped stone tutorial again, and these are what I came up with!
These ones are probably twice as big as the first one I made. I think, personally, that I like the smaller one best, but I just love the colors in these stones! I need to work a bit more on the sizing, but I think they turned out nice.
I think that these ones will probably end up in my etsy shop since they were done nicer than the first one... I still have three more stones left that I can wrap, and I can't wait to try some more!
Let's see... I tried out the tutorial below for the Wire Wrapped Rock, but unfortunately I had the wrong sized stone. I had to do things a bit differently, but for my first wire wrapped stone pendant, I think this one turned out well! It didn't turn out quite like I had hoped, so I think I will just end up keeping this one.... Here it is!
I just love labradorite! Such pretty colors. I have a few more labradorite cabochons coming in the mail, so I will have to try this tutorial again! Also, I think for my next one I am going to try oxidizing the wire afterwards for an antiqued look. I guess I will update again when I get a chance to test this next time.
