A rambling online help for those who are trying to find information on wire working and metal working. I love doing the articles but don't want the limitation of publishing in magazines, so here you are - Amanda writing free information on how I discover new techniques in my jewellery journey.
Friday, January 17, 2014
Hollow Fusion Bracelet
After completing a ton of fusing metal experiments, what do I do with all of these silver plates! I had been drooling over the designs of jewelry artist Nancy Blair and thought about emulating the box look of her bracelets. Why not use my fuse experiments to make up the links in a bracelet!
Fusing Silver with a torch Experiments
In all experiments, I used 1 mm thick s/s sheet.
Experiment 1: 1 silver s/s ball, one fine silver ball and 1 x 9 karat gold ball
Fusing requires a lot of concentration and careful flame control. In an ideal set up, I would have a bunsen burner type flame heating the back plate from underneath to get the metal hot and then use another flame to do the final melting of the top surface from above. Sadly, I don't have a pluthera of materials in my workshop, so I used one plumbers LPG torch from above with the biggest head possible which leaves very little room for minute control.
I learned in this first experiment that s/s melts quickly, 9 karat gold melts next and fine silver holds it shape quite well compared to the melting point of the s/s backplate. The s/s ball and gold ball resemble fried eggs as I was trying to get the fine silver ball to finally fuse to the backplate.
Conclusion of this first experiment was to have all items I am fusing to one backplate all the same material for consistent success without complete meltdown of a feature.
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