silversmithing project one

Last week I attended my third silversmithing class. I am really enjoying myself as are the other students. I continue to be impressed by the knowledge, skill and dedicated of our instructor Sarah - she's really great.

Our first project was to make a sterling silver band ring and then set a cabochon stone with a bezel setting. I really liked the way my ring turned out and decided that I didn't want to cover it with the stone setting so I ended up leaving my ring as is.

Here is the silver I chose, I wanted to make a wide and thick ring. This picture is after I sawed the length of silver and was about to sand the edges.


Here is the silver after annealing and bending it into shape. This was the ring at the end of first class.


During class 2 I soldered the seam of the ring and then did A LOT of hammering to get the ring nice and round. Here is the ring after that process.


Next I sanded the edges, exterior and interior of the ring with 6 different grades of sandpaper to get it nice and smooth and then tossed it into the tumbler to get shiny.


Because I wasn't doing the bezel setting for the ring I was able to get started on my next project at the end of class two. During last week's class I finished the project, a hammered copper cuff bracelet. I forgot to take pictures of the bracelet when it was finished off (after cleaning and brushing) so I'll wait to add photos of that. Next week I will be starting my final project.

In other news...my doctoral defense is on WEDNESDAY!!! Aaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! I'm trying not to completely freak out. The rest of the weekend is allotted to getting my presentation in order. I've taken Monday and Tuesday off work and will use those days to prepare for the questions I will get. By noon on Wednesday I should be a very happy camper and will likely have some minor changes to make before sending the dissertation off to be bound. I am SO looking forward to being done with school!