Week 6
Earring’s repair
I started the week by working on a commission of mine. A member of my family gave me a pair of gold earrings, hand made in Israel 20 years ago and set with an orange sapphire and a purple amethyst. The back branch of one of the earrings broke and needed repair. It’s the first time I worked with gold, so I proceeded with the help and advices of my teacher. I started by unlocking the claws on the back of the earrings to allow the stones to come out of the piece. I took me quite a long time as gold became harder with time and the claws being really small. Once done I took out the 2 stones and realised the orange one was already broken before on an invisible part of the jewel. (See earrings picture 1)

picture earring 1

I then cut a little bit of gold from the earring, mixed it with a small piece of silver solder and mixed them up together by heating them. It therefore created something similar to a gold solder. Then I started soldering once I managed to maintain the 2 parts of the earring in place. (See earrings pictures 2,3 and 4) The soldering point is now a fragile point, so I purposely left a bit more of solder to make sure it doesn’t break again. I then left it in the acid to clean and afterwards cleaned the whole piece as well as the second earring that didn’t need repair. Finally, I cleaned the 2 stones and put them back on the setting as needed. The earrings are now ready for a second life. (See earrings pictures 5&6)

picture earring 2

picture earring 3

picture earring 4

picture earring 5

Silver cross with mother pearls
I carried on with another commission for a friend of mine: a silver cross set with 4 cabochon cut mother pearls. It’s a piece I started before but never had the chance to finish. After cutting the right shape for the cross, I had to make sure each side is even by filing them. Afterwards, I decided to create a “rigatto” texture on the back of the piece to practice my engraving skills. First horizontally, then vertically, the engraving came out pretty well. (See cross pictures 1&2)

pictures cross 1

pictures cross 2

I then created the settings for the stones with a thin sheet of silver. It’s an easy process but quite long. After creating the 4 sets I soldered them on the piece at the four extremities of the cross. I did the mistake to put solder on the inside part of the stone which lead me to a lot of cleaning afterwards unfortunately. I’ll carry on with this project next week. (See cross pictures 3, 4 and 5)

pictures cross 3

pictures cross 4

pictures cross 5