While spacing out looking at my aquarium recently (I do that more than I should admit) my attention drifted to the starfish. After a little staring I grabbed a piece of wax and started carving. My initial idea was for a simple cufflink, not hugely detailed, but something more than just a five pointed star. The carving was pretty easy, the only tricky part was carving the arms so that some appeared to lift a bit. That first iteration was just used for cufflinks.
I was quite pleased with how these came out - the shape was interesting, and they laid well against the shirt cuff, almost like a real starfish on a rock. But.... they could stand to have a bit of color. The next version involved creating a new mold with a 5mm cabochon setting in the middle.
It was at this stage where I got it into my head to make earrings. My first attempt.... lacked grace in the details.
To be honest, I was actually very happy with the result, so proud in fact that I showed them to everyone who would listen to me or check their email. To my friends' credit, none of them pointed out how bad the overly large jumprings looked...or the fact that the holes drilled in the arms looks... shall we say, indelicate. Anyways, it was a starting point. I also experimented with oxidising the earrings... it was a disaster requiring a full re-polishing.
After I came to my senses and realized that what I had was not marketable, I opted to spend many hours trolling the internet to figure out how earrings should look. This is one of those times where being a guy with no pierced ears or predilection to wear jewelry was a bit of an issue. Fortunately, the internet is full of pictures, some of which are not offensive or arousing and involve closeups of dangly earrings. Based on my intensive research I figured out that attaching little rings to the arms instead of drilling through them was probably the way to go.. and using smaller jumprings between the arms would also be an improvement. With that in mind I created three new models in silver to be used specifically for earrings.
Silicone molds were made from the models and from those sterling silver castings were made.
The castings (we are now in present tense) are de-sprued and cleaned up with vibratory media and run thru a rotary tumbler to quickly burnish the castings. Before connecting the different sections I like to attach the ear posts... this could probably happen in a different order....
(once again I am reminded that my camera really needs to come home from work)
To attach the earposts I like to drill a shallow hole, roughly the size of the earpost, in the back of the top earring section.
I use a third arm to keep the ear post upright and in place during the soldering process.
Success! or at least the post doesn't seem to be falling over. Now it is time to assemble the various parts with the jumprings. Jumprings are essentially little metal circles... they are a pain, they are a pain to shape, to solder and to proportion correctly. Here is a jumpring:
I make them by wrapping wire aroung a mandrel and then cutting even links. The jumprings for these earrings are made from 22g fine silver wire. Here are the sections ready for assembly:
The jumprings are put through the rings on the ends of the links and bent into circles. everything is then fluxed and a piece of medium silver solder is placed next to the joint in the jumprings.
This phase is not without mishaps. The picture below shows a failed soldering where the solder flowed too far and connected the jumpring to the starfish. If this happens the links will not swing free... in short, the parts are destined for the melting pot.
When everything goes as planned the links move freely and the jumprings can be put under stress without coming apart. The picture below shows the results of successful soldering followed by a brief stint in the rotary tumbler to burnish the jumprings.
Now, for the tricky part....the stones.
These are 5mm cabs in carnelian, blue chalcedony, and chrysoprase. I like interesting colors and these materials have a great soft feel to them that is not seen in a lot of commercial jewelry.... partly because being 100% natural it is a pain to find matching stones.
At first I pick a couple stones that have similar color and texture. The blue chalcedony in the above picture are just sitting on the settings. If I were to try hammering the bezel in at this stage the stones stand a good chance of popping out. So once I know which stone is going in which setting I use a bur to cut the bezel walls to fit the individual stones. Since these stones are hand cut they all slightly different, saying they are 5mm is pretty much a ballpark... so is saying they are round.
With all the settings cut and stones fitting well - I.E. no rocking side to side and not a canyon of space around the stone - it is time to get the hammerpiece out. The hammer handpiece (I use a Bedeco) is a miniture hammer that is powered by the flexshaft. It has an adjustable stroke and the hammer's head can be shaped to fit the project.
When closing a bezel it is best to tack the stone in place by hitting once on opposite sides of the stone and then going back to fill in the missed areas. If you were to imagine a clock face the first hit would be at 12, then at 6, then 3 and 9 etc..etc.. If you were to start on one side and just work your way around the stone you would end up setting the stone off center. The stone below has been tacked in place (the flat spots on the bezel are the first hits).
I work around the stones until they are solidly in place and there are no peaked areas of the metal that were missed.
At this point the pieces need one final cleanup. Visible hammer strikes need to be polished out as well as any random marks and scuffs. I have found that pumice wheels are best for this kind of work.
And now for a little more polishing, this time using the 3M bristle discs. A lot of time and effort for a simple pair of earrrings eh???
All shined up and ready to be photographed. I would like to make an OTT (over the top) version in gold with flush set diamonds and rubys and ruby cabs... so many projects.