Class Week Six February 20, 2013

So last night, we get to the heart of these classes.

Bezeling a stone cabochon.

After watching a video of the process, I’m crazy jumpy,

waiting for  the instructor to measure and cut the pieces for my project.

I’m only going to note the basic steps…so this is not in any way a tutorial

…but just to give you an idea of the project.

First, I brought a couple of cabochons from my favorite local bead shop.

Each about 12 x 6 mm. Just picked two from a big bowl of $1.00 beads.

Not sure what they are, but maybe a lapis and some kind of pretty agate.

Pam said to just make sure they are flat backed.

I received 3 pieces for the bezel.

A thin strip of fine silver to form the bezel, a strip of decorative beaded wire,

and a flat piece of sterling sheet.

First… fit, trim, file, and solder the bezel strip to fit snugly around the cabochon.

I finally settled on the lapis stone.

Next… fit, trim, file, and solder the beaded trim strip into an oval.

The last photo shows how they all fit together.

Next week, I’ll solder the bezeled stone piece to sheet metal in four places (sans stone).

Also, have to trim away the extra sheet metal

and more filing and sanding to smooth everything out.

Between now and then, I need to decide if I want to make a ring or a pendant.

And I’m not sure, but I think I’m leaning toward a ring

because it adds another layer of challenge to make a split shank ring.

And when am I ever going to get to try this again?!

I have to say it would make a pretty big beautiful ring, too!

In between all this, I had time to try out an experiment

with my cheapo box of copper washers.

Rolled them in the rolling mill, being very careful of my fingers.

Took a couple of passes…but just look what happened to them!

Big uniformly shaped ovals of copper beauty.

This pair was hit with the torch for a heat patina after texturing with a ball peen hammer.

And these had a layer of netting placed on top in their last run through the mill.

Pretty darn cool, huh?