Hello I have been reading the forum for a good while, picking up tips, slowly getting the hang of banging and bending silver, and have even sold some small items, so i think its about time I said hello,I am nearing retirement having spent most of my life toolmaking and setting swiss automatics, I have ,or rather the company I work for do quite a lot of production work for the jewellery trade, most stainless and titanium body jewellery, also machine quite a bit of silver for the electronic industry,I must admit I get a lot of satisfaction from working on the bench, its familiar in a way, but very different,
Frank
Hello Patstone
I'll put some pics up tomorrow,I have some on my camera,I started with earrings, hook wires and studs, made a few simple silver rings, and liked some of the texturing,.... tips out of books and here, now making pendants, after a wobble or two seem to be getting there, mounted some nice picture jaspers, I bought some silver single stone ring blanks from cooksons and tried a bit of setting, haha, a couple of disasters but a little light at the end of the tunnel, getting there though..... I think
Frank
When you reply to the thread, there is a row of icons above the text box. Hover over the one with a tree in a box should show 'Insert Image'. Click on that and you'll have the option 'From Computer' and 'From URL' a checkbox for 'Retrieve remote file and reference locally' means the image will be copied to the Cookson's server so that if you delete the URL referenced file, it will still show on the thread.
You would be better off trying to make the ring blanks yourself, it takes time to master it but worth it in the end. I only started about 6 years ago, and buy silver sheet and wire and sometimes tube and thin chains, the rest is made by hand. I went to a local evening class (one night for 10 weeks) which showed the basics, but it was very basic. The biggest backhanded compliment I had was the other day, I went to a craft show to exhibit and my old tutor was there and she said, "if I had know you were coming I wouldn't have come".
After I said thank you for that, she said my stuff was very good, which pleased me a lot. I buttered her up a bit by saying it was due to her good teaching but actually I learned a lot from they guys on this forum and from You Tube.
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