CAD session 1

Final Piece

For my final piece I made Salt and Pepper bowls placed in a sail based on the theme of sailing from the brief. I decided on using a sail as the base for the salt and pepper bowls as I really liked the curve of the sail in the wind and so I wanted to incorporate this into my piece.

For my final piece I made Salt and Pepper bowls placed in a sail based on the theme of sailing from the brief. I decided on using a sail as the base for the salt and pepper bowls as I really liked the curve of the sail in the wind and so I wanted to incorporate this into my piece.

I used a rolling mill to bend the sail to the right curve, then a wooden block and blocking hammer to aid in the curving of the sail before I planished it with a stake and a raw hide mallet to create an even and smooth surface. I created four domes, two large ones for the salt and pepper with I planished with a planishing hammer and a stake and then two small domes for the spoons with I soldered to thick wire. Finally I created two domes within the sail to sit the two bowls in before I polished everything.

Spinning

We were shown how to spin a bowl. We started by drawing and cutting out a circle in copper, then we placed it on the spinning lathe and used various large tools to manipulate the metal into a bowl.

I don’t think I will use this process in the future as it is slightly difficult due to the size of the tools however it was fun to do.

Jump Ring maker

We had to make a jump ring maker/mandrel using the centre lathe. we place the building metal rod into the machine.  We turned several dials to move the chuck closer to the rod to cut away layers of metal to create different sized smaller rods to create different size jump rings.

I found that this process was slightly tricky as I couldn’t remember what order to turn the dials but with more practice i will remember. However the mandrel we made will be used in future pieces.

Scoring and Folding

We were taught how to score and fold. You can use this technique to not only create straight lines but curved lines as well. We used a ruler and a scribe to scratch a line deep enough for the scoring tool to latch onto the metal and score a clean straight line which we repeated several times until it was deep enough (not all the way through) so that we could fold the metal (before later on in a design soldering the fold).

Im not sure if I will use this technique in the future to make jewellery or not but I think that it is a creative way of making folds for both jewellery and silversmithing.

 

Spoon Making

 

We were taught by a man named Kevin Grey to make a spoon. We did this by annealing a really thick piece of copper, and then hitting it with a hammer at one end thin it out and flatten it. After doing this and annealing it repeatedly. We then drew the curve for the shape of the spoon and cut the excess off, from there we blocked and planished the end of the spoon.

I did not really enjoy this particular technique/process because it took what felt like avery long time and it was a lot of very very hard work on ones arm especially since we did our first go on such a thick piece of metal.

Lemmel Scoop

The first Silversmithing technique we have been taught this module is blocking and Planishing. By using these techniques we made a “Lemmel scoop”. I started by drawing an oval, I then used metal sheers to cut it out. After this I used a sharpie to mark out an area that I was not going to be blocking out as this would become the handle, I proceeded to use an egg shaped wooden hammer and a tree stump to manipulate the annealed metal into a curved shape- I had to keep annealing and blocking it to get it to the shape it is. After what seemed like hours and hours of hammering I started to using a planishing hammer and a stake to planish the outside of the scoop which evens out the bumps from blocking.

Drawing with Linda

I did not find this aspect of the course to be useful as I have done a lot of what we did with Linda many times before in both GCSE, AS Level and at college so i felt that i was not learning anything new, however, it is a good way to get everyone put to the same speed and to help with idea development. I guess i just hoped it would start at some point along the six weeks we had with her to be more technical with how to draw rings, earrings etc…

Jewellery Rendering with Layla Kristina

During employability week we were given the opportunity to be taught by a lovely woman called Layla Kristina on how to render jewellery. She is a fantastic jewellery renderer and I found this to be a fantastic learning experience as this had been the type of technical stuff had wanted to learn and do.

As a result of this I will be doing this in the future to not only help me come up with design ideas but also help me if someone has some stones they want set at a ring, necklace, bracelet or earrings. I found this to be one of the best days so far on this course and feel that as a jeweller this will help further my career.

 

Enamel Samples

I was taught a woman name Jane, on how to enamel. this was an interesting process as we used different techniques to make the pieces such as “Clasionne, Scraffito, Transfer and Stencil” we did all four of these techniques however my favourite one was the “Scraffito” as I like the drawing element that this one had, especially because my piece was not completely covered in the white enamel and i had drawn a cat on it and ended up looking like a cat in snow.

However i do not think that i will do enamling in the future because at this time i dont feel like it is my thing. But this could change- we will see where i stand on this in the next year to come.