Where it's made

This is not a public page but specifically made to show a peek into my workshop. 

I usually don't post work in progress videos and don't really have a setup for doing so. So unfortunately it's only photos. 

 

This earring project starts with a stone and 18 gauge sterling silver wire.

Usually more than one type of pliers is used to shape the wire.

When the wire is manipulated, it workhardens and gets more springy. To make it more malleable again, it's annealed, which means it's heated with a torch and the internal structure changes again to a softer metal. Unfortunatly heating the silver oxidzes the copper in the sterling siler alloy.

Putting the silver into piclke, which is a weak acid, removes the oxidation and any other dirt.

Fast forward to a perfectly shaped wire with ends that meet. At that stage the bezel can be soldered. Up to that point it's just a shaped piece of wire.

Once the bezel is soldered, it can be used as a base for the stone. But first, it needs to go back into the pickle.

The soldered base of the bezel in the pickle.

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A quick check with the stone that the fit is still ok. The next step is to solder on some additional wires that will hold the stone.

These wires will be bent to hold the stone. Of course the bezel has to go back into the pickle to clean it after soldering.

After bending the wires it already looks a litlle bit more like piece of jewelry. The small textured piece of silver will be part of the earring design. Since this is a work in progress I don't have a finished product listed yet. This pair of earrings will be part of a collection that has fossilized coral, tube agate and pearls all with blackened silver.

Fun Fact: Sterling silver is a silver alloy tht contains copper. When your silver turns black, it is the copper oxidizing. This can happen when it's exposed to sulphur compounds (intentionally to darken it) or by accident when it comes into contact with cosmetics, cleaning products, swimming pool water or unfortunately even sweat.