A ring is born

This is the story of Stoo's ring.  Stoo is one of The Boy's friends.  He saw the silver ring I made at my silver clay class last year and asked me to make him a thumb ring. That was a while ago.  It's not that I haven't wanted to make his ring.  I've just been putting it off because I only had one pack of silver clay and I didn't want to mess it up.

At the end of last week The Boy asked when I was going to make Stoo's ring & I figured I didn't really have any excuses so I should just get on with it.  The main reason for my reluctance is that there are so many standards for ring sizes.  I learned using Japanese sizes but only have UK & US ring gauges so I knew I was going to have to do some calculations to work out shrinkage before I started.

So I got out all the size conversion charts I'd downloaded and tried to work it out in UK sizes. Stoo's thumb is a size Y so what size do I need to make the unfired ring to allow for 8-9% shrinkage?  After checking & triple checking I convinced myself it needed to be Z+4, 5 whole sizes bigger.  I was a bit worried that the guidance for US sizes was to go 2 sizes bigger and for Japanese sizes to go 3 sizes bigger.  Then I realised that UK sizes are a lot closer together than US or Japanese and relaxed a bit.

First I decided to prepare my ring mandrel.  Challenge no. 1 - even the thick end of my mandrel was too small for size Z+4.  Solution - tape paper round the mandrel to pad it out:

Challenge no. 2 soon followed - the ring papers were just too small to join around the mandrel.  Solution - use a teeny piece of sellotape to stop the paper pinging off.

Now I was ready to get the clay out and make the ring.  It took a few attempts & some extra clay before I actually had enough to go around the mandrel enough to join it properly.  And that's when I found out that there was sellotape somewhere it shouldn't be and I couldn't move the paper.  The ring fell apart and that was that - back to the drawing board again.

Brainwave - I fetched the greaseproof paper from the kitchen and wrapped the mandrel again:

That helped so I was finally able to construct the ring on the mandrel.  I slid the whole lot down the mandrel slightly and left it all to dry overnight.  I checked it with the ring gauge to make sure it was was still sitting at size Z+4.  Here we have a not very good photo of the ring, all dried and ready to be sanded and filed and inspected:

There was a disappointing number of fine cracks in the pattern but I suppose that's only to be expected considering how many times I had to start over and that the clay seemed to dry out very quickly even though I was working it inside cling film as much as possible.  For the next few hours I kept coming back to check it under the magnifying light, carefully dabbing a teeny amount of water or slip on any cracks and leaving it to dry.

I took my time about sanding the edges and the inside and carefully bevelling the inside edge so that it wouldn't be sharp against Stoo's delicate skin. :o)

Finally I felt ready to fire it.  I laid it on a piece of firing blanket on top of the kiln shelf and cooked it at 650 degrees for 30 minutes.  I plunged it into cold water then took it away and gave it a first polish with a brass brush:

That doesn't look too bad does it?  I checked it with the ring gauge again it measures size Y - result!  My calculations were correct.  Just need Stoo to try it on his thumb now to be sure it fits.  Then I have to send it to the Assay Office to be hallmarked before he takes possession of it.

I've been going back to it now and then throughout the day with sand paper, the burnisher and polishing papers and I'm happy with how it looks.  I hope Stoo likes it too.

 

If making rings for boys is going to become a habit I need to buy a bigger mandrel.

First outing in my kiln

At long last, what you've all been waiting for, the story of the first outing in my kiln.  First I gathered together all my tools and materials.  My desk is really only big enough for it all when it's squished together.  We have silver clay, the star of the show, cutters in all shapes and sizes, texture mats, rollers, spacers, olive oil, water, the all important cling film, paint brush, pointy things....

I decided I'd finish the job I started in my Art Clay class all those months ago. On the right in the photo below you can see 3 of the pieces I made.  An end cap (top) and two little textured hearts that I had intended to turn into earrings until I realised I should have punched the holes in opposite sides for that. Doh!

So, I rolled out a pack of PMC3 Silver clay over a texture mat and used cutters to cut out the shapes.  The bead cap had to be carefully rolled into a tube and joined.

On the left you can see the new end cap and two hearts with the holes punched on the opposite side from the first two.  They are waiting to be dried and fired.  You will notice they are bigger than the first set because metal clay shrinks when it is fired.  This is where I have to hope I used the correct size cutters so that the fired versions are the same size as the first set.

In the photo below you can see my attempt at making Yin & Yang symbols using the silver disc at the top as a texture mat then using a needle tool to carefully cut out the individual shapes.

The next day I checked that the pieces were dry then put them on a rubber block to protect them while I carefully sanded the edges to smooth them.  Here they are sitting on the kiln shelf ready to be fired.  I had 3 options for the firing process varying from 10 minutes at 700 degrees to 30 minutes at 600 degrees.  I decided to play it safe as it was my first time and fire them for longer at a lower temperature.

When they came out of the kiln half an hour later they didn't look a whole lot different from when they went in.  The clay doesn't magically turn silver in the kiln, it burns off the binding agent (which is a bit whiffy) but the metal stays creamy white in colour until it is polished.  You can see the difference below.  The heart on the right has had a quick polish with a wire brush:

And now we have the proof of the pudding.  On the left, my newly fired end cap and hearts.  On the right the ones I made in my Art Clay class.  Miraculously, they turned out pretty much the same size.  That wasn't guaranteed as the first batch was made from Art Clay Silver and the second batch was made from PMC3 silver clay. The two types of clay have different shrinkage rates but thankfully not too different.

Does that mean I know what I'm doing with this stuff? 

Now I need to take all of my little pieces to the Edinburgh Assay Office and have them hallmarked so I have another adventure to look forward to.  Once they're hallmarked I can turn them into jewellery.  I think I may make a necklace with the end caps and earrings with the hearts.  Or I might surprise you all and make bracelets instead.

I have a new toy

At last my long awaited mini-kiln has arrived.  Much to my frustration it arrived just in time for me to unpack it and sit it on the dining room table until I got back from a weekend in Oban.  The original kiln that was sent out on 31st December is still missing in action so I'd to wait for a new one to be sent out.  How do you lose a kiln?  I know it's only an ickle kiln, but the box still weighed 10 kilos.

The kiln is manufactured abroad but has been re-engineered for UK & European electrical currents.  Unfortunately it still had a foreign plug on it so first stop on return from Oban was the local Focus DIY shop to buy a UK plug which The Boy fitted for me.  I managed to resist the urge to go & play with it straight away and concentrated on getting unpacked, putting a washing on, etc.  Am I disciplined or what? (What? is the answer I suspect.)

Then Monday arrived.  Again, I had 'stuff' to do so I busied myself with that first, had lunch, then..... dug out the spare granite table mats and arranged them on top of the cooker.  It was the only surefire heat resistant place I could think of for a test run. And here it is, my shiny, new Kitiki mini-kiln:

It's teeny. Less than 25cm (or 9" in old money) square and not much higher than that.  I read the instructions and made sure it was at least 30cms (1 foot) from anything else, including walls and cupboards.  I checked that the room was well ventilated - the draughts coming in under the sink would fix that - and that the temperature in the room stayed below 40 degrees - in my kitchen at this time of year that's a given, in fact it's a blessing if it's above freezing point.

I carefully set the temperature to a random 691 degrees C then switched it on and stepped back so that I was in easy reach of this:

 

Yes, they recommend you have a fire extinguisher within easy reach as well.  I was surprised to learn that the little round thing in the middle of the door is not in fact a window with heatproof glass but a vent.  This did worry me slightly and made standing next to the fire extinguisher seem like the sensible thing to do.  I noticed as the kiln temperature went above 6oo degrees that I could see the interior glowing red though the little vent.

The actual firing chamber is minute but I'm not planning on firing anything very big so it should be fine.When I phoned the supplier to order it I asked about tongs and heatproof gloves.  I was told that I'd never get a hand in a thick glove inside the chamber and never a truer word was spoken.  Look how little it is:

Notice it was safely switched off and had cooled down before I attempted to open the door. :o)  I left it at temperature for 5 minutes or so before I switched it off and let it cool down and kept checking to see how hot the exterior panels got.  I was pleasantly surprised to find that only the top panel seemed to generate much heat.  Once I've read the instructions for firing silver clay I'll play about test it some more before I decide on where to put it permanently.

I also have some accessories for it:

From left to right we have:

• A kiln shelf to rest things on as they fire as it's not a good idea to place anything directly on the surface of the firing chamber.
• A firing blanket.  This can be torn up and used to support things that might end up mishapen if they are fired on a solid kiln shelf, such as rings that aren't a simple, smooth cylinder shape.  It feels quite strange to the touch.  The Boy is freaked out by the feel of cotton wool.  If he misbehaves I can torment him with the blanket. :o)
• Vermiculite.  This is a kind of granular equivalent of the firing blanket. I'm not sure when you would use a blanket rather than vermiculite and vice versa but I'm sure I'll soon learn.

Now I just need to find the time to read up on silver clay and decide what my first project will be.  I have a few books demonstrating different techniques with suggested projects.  My personal punch is now available at the Edinburgh Assay Office  so I'm ready to rock & roll.  One of The Boy's friends has asked met make him a ring but I think I need a bit of practice before I tackle that.  I also want to experiment with copper and bronze clay.

Are you still awake after all that?  I hope so.  I can't wait to get started actually making things.  I suspect my first projects will be components for pieces of jewellery so I will be making things to make things with. :o)

Watch this space, creativity is about to commence.

An educational weekend

As my last employer recently decided they could live without me and gave me a little cash to soften our parting of company, I decided to use some of that cash to learn some new jewellery making skills.  I've always enjoyed technical things so I signed up for Beginners Silver Jewellery Techniques and Comprehensive introduction to Precious Metal Clay workshops, both of which took place over the weekend.

The silver techniques workshop on Saturday lasted two hours.  That sounded like a reasonable length of time but when we actually got down to it, a little longer would have been good.  We were given a tiny piece of silver sheet, and a load of tools including saws, texturing hammers, files, drills, etc.  First we drew around our piece of silver on a sheet of paper a few times.  Then we had a go at drawing shapes to use as templates inside the little rectangles.  That was the easy bit.  Next we had to cut out our templates and draw around them on the silver sheet.  Here's mine:

Then it was time to do the scary part and actually cut out the pattern from the silver sheet using a very fine saw.  That got harder as I went along because my big clumsy fingers wre rubbing off the pencil marks as I tried to hold the piece of silver steady.  I got slower with each shape instead of quicker.

With all of the pieces cut out, the next step was to carefully file the ragged edges around each shape.  Remarkably, I had managed to make all four pieces more or less the same.  Result!  I decided to use a texturing hammer on my pieces so for the next couple of minutes there was a bit of therapeutic hammering until all of my shapes had a similiar covering of aesthetically pleasing dents.  The next challenge was to pierce all four in the same place with a hole for a jump ring and give the whole lot a polish.  Someone has suggested my finished creations look like fishing lures.  I'm inclined to agree but they are PRETTY fishing lures that will be transformed into earrings or a necklace:

The precious metal clay workshop on Sunday was an all day event with several projects to complete throughout the day.  First up was the silver leaf.  The tutor had very kindly collected some suitable leaves off a bush and we all chose one.  For this we needed a pot of art clay silver paste and a paint brush.

We started off by carefully painting the  back of the leaf with paste then setting it aside to dry.  As the day went on we built up the layers of paste until it was about 1mm thick and let it dry before putting it in the kiln to fire.

For the next project we were given a 10 gram pack of silver clay, which doesn't look nearly big enough to do anything useful with.  There were lots of pieces of jewellery in the middle of the table so we all had a look through them and decided what we wanted to make.  There were tiny cookie cutters & texture mats as well to help us make our pieces unique.  I decided to make an end cone.  I know, that doesn't sound very exciting but there were some gorgeous pieces of jewellery on the table made with very pretty end cones.  So we massaged our clay to condition it then rolled it out, textured it, cut it and, in most cases, balled it up and started again.  It took me 4 attempts to get my end cone right.  I had a little piece of clay left so I used it to make a couple of tiny textured hearts.  If I had remembered to punch the holes on opposite sides I could have used them to make earrings.  :)  Never mind, I can use them as charms on a bracelet or something.

The last project of the day was a ring.  Remarkably, a 10 gram pack of clay was enough to make a fairly chunky ring.  This time we had to tackle ring mandrels.  First we had to use a ring guage to size our chosen finger, then roll the clay, texture it, cut it and hope it fitted around the ring mandrel at the appropriate part for the size of ring we wanted.  It did. Phew!  The joining of the two ends was slightly tricky.  Despite having bigger fingers than most of the other participants I had enough clay left over to make a ring topper, so I did.  I carefully added the topper then left the ring to dry before firing.  We were running over our allotted time by then but we were all enjoying ourselves and noone was desperate to leave so we stayed until our creations were fired.  Look at the pretty things I made.  I'm particularly pleased with the end cone so I will take care making it into a pendant:

I still need to drill a hole for a jump ring in my leaf.  The ring is very slightly off-centre but I'll work on that and see if I can straighten it up a little without cracking the silver.  It's perfectly wearable though and very comfortable.  I will have to save up my pennies to buy some art clay and have a go at home.