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My wife……saw some hollow beautiful silver spheres as pendant earrings.My questions are: what weight is acceptable? Which will of course be determined by size and also thickness of silver. If too thin they will dent easily but if to thick……too heavy. Any ideas or guides please?
Ps thank heavens the shop was closed and the price wasn’t visible! …..and we “can’t” remember the name of the shop….or can I?
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Make the two halves with your doming set David, using say 0.5mm sheet.
It is quite tricky to get a true half spheres, because you need to work the punch around the sides of your hollows, until they are as high as they are wide.
After that they are rubbed on a sanding sheet until they fit together well.
Flux, put solder snips around the inside of the lower one, close to the edge, and rest the second on top. You cant see what you are doing next, but by slowly and carefully heating from the top, solder will melt and rise to close the join, as seen by a silvery line. Then air cool.
Once you have a ball, it needs two small holes somewhere out of sight to allow air, steam and pickle to escape, or you will risk an explosion when heating at the next stage.
A morning experimenting with copper I guess. Dennis
Now this looks like quite a challenge! Thanks Dennis.
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Another tip when soldering the two halves together try using soldering clamps like these ones I use when making small egg shaped pendants.
Attachment 13047
James
Thanks for the hint
David.
Sometime ago I was sent or stumbled upon a step by step article describing how to make hollow sterling beads/balls/spheres. I have been going crazy trying to find it again. What I remember is it was by a woman and it was a very easy to understand step by step with drawings.
At the Baltimore Antique Show, I met a jewelry dealer who was fascinated by her graduated hollow spheres ball necklace. She was very interested in learning about how it was made. I immediately said I remembered seeing the article and would find it and forward it to her.
You are not Scott Martin.Quote:
Originally Posted by aylen14
https://www.smpub.com/ubb/Forum1/HTML/002872.html
That's a great catch !