Thursday, March 10, 2011

Week 9-Granulation Pendants




Last Saturday I took a great class in granulation from Debbie Fehrenbach. I had no choice but to part with some of the sterling silver sheet that I've been hoarding. We learned how to melt all of the little same size fine silver balls. They were then glued to the sterling silver sheet with a mixture of gum tragacanth, Handy Flux and blue ammonia (ammonia that copper has soaked in). When that's dry they're fused to the silver with a torch in a tricky operation where timing is everything. I had a couple of little balls come off of each one but not where it's really noticable. I added a small bezel cup to one and set in it a blue lab spinel. Debbie is a wealth of infomation and I always learn a lot in her classes. I actually finished these on Monday when I got to try out my new Knew Concept saw. I bought it hoping that I might learn to enjoy sawing. The saw is so good that there's hope that I will.

5 comments:

  1. Thanks, Sue! You'll enjoy it if you get to take the class. I was too afraid to refuse the ones that fell off since they're not that noticable. But these ran around in the tumbler for hours so the rest of them are really on there.

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  2. Wow! The pendants are really cool! I can't even tell that some of the little buggers came off.

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  3. Thanks, Shelby! You know sometimes you just have to know when to leave well enough alone. :D

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