Beginning again

 I oftentimes feel like a beginner whenever I go back over to the workshop and try to do some jewellery making.

On Friday morning I just wanted to make a large pebble, the beginnings of a new pendant for myself.

I had realised that I would like a longer hanging pendant like a number of the pendants I wear that B has made over the years; as well as others I have purchased at that mid tummy length.

And it was not to be. I got the larger silver wire I wanted, I sawed a  length off, I filed the edges, I gathered some solder, I set up the new borax in its dish and I turned the stone over so there were no holes for my solder to fall down. And off I went. 

No way was it going to work. I tried different gas burners, I tried different types of solder. I tried solder on the top. I tried solder on the bottom. I tried different flux. I pickled and cleaned the silver and started over several times. Nope.

I retreated, and headed off for a catch up with a friend.

B said he would see if he could work out what was going on, and sure enough after attempting all the things I tried, he thought wow that stone is hot and worked out that the stone I was using was absorbing ALL of the heat of the flame so none was available for melting the solder. Good deducting!

So today, I went and played and had success.

Here is the large pebble B had managed to successfully solder/solder successfully.

Here is my smaller pebble necklet; and an example of a pendant that I wear at mid-tummy for size comparisons and checks. And the new stone B organised for me to solder on!

Here are the three pebbles together - I managed to make the smaller two with ease today; the solder ran beautifully and I was able to file and polish them with relative ease.

I headed back to the sewing/jewellery room to put the pendant together on a long cord. Here are the three pendants together with the pendant on its longer cord.

Speaking of the sewing/jewellery room we are mid-reorganisation there so it was a bit tricky. We are expecting some new storage drawers tomorrow or Tuesday so had to get in and move some things around before they arrive. Chaos reigns.

Fingers crossed we can get the new bits in and then sort the other bits around them as per the plan...