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Thread: Bits and pieces

  1. #1
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    Default Bits and pieces

    Some simple things I've played with recently.

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    I made the top ring in this picture for my next door neighbour after I showed her some of the things I've made and she fell in love with it - but because I'd neglected to make proper notes about how that twist is really easy to make I mangled my first attempt, so the second two rings below it are how I salvaged the wire - a couple of undulating rings, one of them with a metal clay doo-dad. The bottom row is made up of (from the left) a metal clay piece that just looks like a spider to me (it was pressed into a carving I made but it's too odd looking, even for me), another metal clay piece pressed into a carving and platinol applied with some teeny spinel beads at the bottom and a pair of earrings that I wear all the time, also metal clay pressed into a carving with some platinol.

    Here's a close up of the ring from the middle row. It's not quite how I want it to look, I've only got a v-tool for carving and it's a bit "sharp", I need to play with other ways of making texture sheets. And it looks like what it is, a piece of metal clay soldered to a shank. I need to spend more time on combining metal clay with bullion so that I lose the, "this got soldered to that", look.

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    This next piece is more metal clay, a pendant I made from a carved sheet impression and I'm still channelling the MacDonald sisters here - on the back I pressed a piece of a teeny fern that grows on the wall opposite my kitchen. This is a gift for someone so I hope she likes it.

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    And today I set myself a challenge. How quickly can I make a delicate and fashionable thing (even if i'm late to the party because I hate to follow fashion) - stacking rings. The long kyanite ring is one I made a couple of years ago and it's a favourite so I needed to make things that would work with it. I've got lots of these 4mm stones so there's one with a moonstone (that I made last week) and today I added the green onyx, the amethyst and yet another shank topped with a torch fired piece of metal clay. I think they're really pretty together so I'm glad I broke through my dislike of fashionable things! And I finally used a tool that's been in my stash for a while, the much maligned cheap bezel setting tool that you rub over the top of small bezel settings. Having read about how horrible it is here I had polished the inside of the bigger punches and used them to push down on and give a final set to these little stones after initially securing them with a pair of pliers. Worked a treat I think?

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    Deb

  2. #2
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    Stacking ring medley. Very nice. Dennis.

  3. #3
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    Quote Originally Posted by Dennis View Post
    Stacking ring medley. Very nice. Dennis.
    I'm slightly disappointed that this simple fashionable idea looks so good.

  4. #4
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    These are all really lovely. I especially like the circular flat piece with pattern and the ring is amazing. Karen

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    Quote Originally Posted by Animalnutty View Post
    These are all really lovely. I especially like the circular flat piece with pattern and the ring is amazing. Karen
    Thank you Karen, I really love the flat pieces - metal clay pressed into carvings I've made, and so the details become very fine once the clay is fired. What I need to work on next is integrating this idea a little more seamlessly/coherently onto the sterling ring shanks.
    And I'm totally addicted to teeny tiny cabochons - I've gone from one extreme to the other as I also have a love of huge labradorite cabs. I'll keep them for the electroforming projects I think, and play with tiny stones on silver for a while.

  6. #6
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    Quote Originally Posted by misspond View Post
    Thank you Karen, I really love the flat pieces - metal clay pressed into carvings I've made, and so the details become very fine once the clay is fired. What I need to work on next is integrating this idea a little more seamlessly/coherently onto the sterling ring shanks.
    And I'm totally addicted to teeny tiny cabochons - I've gone from one extreme to the other as I also have a love of huge labradorite cabs. I'll keep them for the electroforming projects I think, and play with tiny stones on silver for a while.
    There is something very special about them - I'm really intrigued by the process, sounds like fun. The carving process must be very fiddly as you have such lovely fine detail in there.

  7. #7
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    It's actually not too fiddly, I use a 1.5mm carving tool with some little carving blocks. Then once the metal clay is fired it shrinks by about 10% making the details that little bit finer. One day I'll get around to fine tuning my designs but what have essentially been doodles to see what I could do have come out pretty well so far I think.

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    Last edited by misspond; 21-07-2019 at 01:07 PM.

  8. #8
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    Thank you for showing the pictures of those, that looks like fun Sorry, not done anything like that before so can't really visualise or probably being a bit dappy, but do you then just press the clay into the moulds? Does that no then distort the shape of for example the disc? I'm imagining the clay to be quite soft. Your 'doodles' certainly have come out well :-)

  9. #9
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    The clay has the texture of very soft polymer clay (sort of, it's difficult to describe but that's the closest I can come up with). I practice with a piece of polymer first to gauge the size of the piece of clay I need, then pinch off a piece of clay, roll it into a ball and then use one of a couple of techniques to get the impression - sometimes I press it on and if I want another design on the back lightly press another texture sheet on it and press, or you can use playing card stacks either side as depth guides and use a roller. It does mean that there's some shape distortion but that's what I'm aiming for at the moment, a somewhat organic look.

    Once the clay is off the texture sheet you allow it to dry and then tidy up the edges to get rid of cracks, and get rid of areas that are a bit too out of shape. I use very fine sanding papers/nail buffers for that. You can keep all of the dust to make slip or to add texture by pressing it into the clay on other projects, so if you're careful there's very little waste.

    Sometimes the impression distorts slightly but again I'm aiming for something imperfectly perfect. Another thing I want to play with more is using siligum impression material to make a mould of the textures I carve, distorting them slightly by pulling the moulding stuff off before it's set, and then using that mould to press the clay into.

    The little embellishments I've made so far are much easier to make, small ball of clay pressed into an area of texture with my finger tip, that's what I've used on rings and stud earrings.

    I've soon got a month off work as it's the summer holidays so I shall be playing a bit more for sure!

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