Commissions or rather requests from family and friends are always welcome, because they take me out of my comfort zone.
This one for a necklace, was accompanied by a rather blurry photograph and my interpretation was that it had a set of pointed metal tabs probably seven, lightly patinated and suspended from heavy duty thong.
To be sure I started by making a quick mock up from stiff paper and string, which seemed to be about right and gave me some indication of the length too.
Then I made the tabs from 0.5mm textured silver, bending the ends into tubing with linking pliers and checking the size with a 2.0mm mandrel.
The pierced parts were made separately and soldered on top. I am not a fan of paste solder, but it seemed ideal for this. Luckily, as the paste from Palmer Metals seems to stay fresh for ever, I was able to use some I had bought ages ago.
So as not to be absolute copy cats, we decided on a different piercing pattern, but the challenge was not to have surplus solder escape into the design, because solder does not colour well.
You will see that I also made tube ends with a hook faster and an extension chain. The whole lot were immersed in Noirit, the marvellous oxidising agent from Cookson. Used straight from the bottle, it is fairly slow acting but produces an even colour without flakes forming and definitely an advance on previous concoctions.
The colour was reduced to a lighter grey by brushing with a large soapy glass brush.
Finally the parts were threaded onto tight fitting black thong, using glue for the tube ends. Completed thanks to paper and string. Dennis.
