Welcome to my 4th All That Glitters challenge!
Phew! I can’t quite believe there are only two more episodes of “All That Glitters” left! Whilst I’m sad that I’ll have to find new entertainment for a Tuesday night, I confess that I’m relieved that I won’t be doing quite so many challenges after this! Don’t get me wrong, I’ve loved the challenges and learnt a lot. However, it’s been a long time since I worked to a deadline! And some of these items of jewellery are far beyond my current skillsets! This week, I made my very first locket!
All That Glitters – Week 4
Week 4 of “All that Glitters” was all about working in gold! It really was the ultimate in challenging the jewellers’ skills. When I got started with jewellery making again, I did a little reading (probably more reading than I did the first time round!). It was the first time I’d ever considered the different melting points and properties of metals, with gold both having a lower melting point and softer than sterling silver. I can understand why the programme producers saved working in gold until the quarter finals!
So for Week 4, the jewellers were asked to make a pair of gold hoop earrings, which needed to be stunning in design as well as identical! It was interesting to hear some of the history of gold hoop earrings, such as that they are a symbol of status and power. (Particularly interesting for me since I don’t have pierced ears and have never worn hoop earrings… I wonder what that says about me?!).
There were some beautiful earrings made. My particular favourites were Dan’s ripple earrings – I loved the hand made finding! I also liked Hugo’s dragonfly earrings and can only hope that I’ll ever make anything that well executed!
I loved the “Bespoke” challenge this week, mainly as it reminded me that much jewellery is made for sentimental and personal reasons. It’s fascinating to watch five different people interpret the same brief in their own way and all come up with varied designs. This week, the jewellers were asked to make a locket to give to a woman who had been a donor for another woman, saving her life, and later becoming her best friend. It was a beautiful story.
This Week’s All That Glitters Challenge
Well, you can probably guess that I didn’t work in gold this week. I did consider whether I could put a gold accent into my work, just as a nod to the actual theme. But when I put my sensible hat on, I realised that this was a bad idea and that I was very likely to melt the gold. And waste a lot of time, effort and money!
After the trouble I had with the bib necklace last week, I decided to try and keep my design simple. As much as I enjoyed making the necklace, I couldn’t afford to spend 6 days making something (I’m starting to miss my children!). I was going to opt to make some hoop earrings, as I’ve never done that before. But, like I said, I don’t have pierced ears, so I really struggle to grasp how much earrings should weigh. In the end, I decided to make a locket… and I’ve never done that before either! Suffice to say, there’s a reason why it’s considered an advanced technique!
Design
After watching the episode, I spent a few hours playing around with ideas. My husband helpfully suggested making lockets in the shape of pokeballs and golden snitches, which my children would have loved. If I’d managed to get hold of some tiny Pokemon figures, I would have made a pokeball locket! Unfortunately, I’ll have to save that one for another day, as I really couldn’t source any reasonably priced Pokemon figures. I guess they’ve gone out of fashion for now.
I finally decided to make a Lego pendant… silly me…
Worries
Even before starting to make the locket, I was worried! Here are a few of the pitfalls that I predicted (some materialised and some didn’t).
How to Make the Rectangular Frame?!
I did quite a lot of research into how to make a pendant before I started. A lot of the videos and blogs seemed to show you how to make a circular domed pendant. I started to worry about working with straight lines and particularly, how to make the rectangular frame?!
From my point of view, there were a couple of options. Should I:
- Cut a long rectangular piece of copper to the right measurements and use pliers to bend the frame? Pro: only one solder join. Con: The corners are not likely to be crisp.
- Cut 4 pieces of rectangular copper and solder them together? Pro: The corners will be pointy. Con: There are four solder joins to make! And then I’d need to plan how to solder the rest of the piece together. Uh-oh…
I guess you can tell which option I went with, right? Yes, the difficult one…
Surprisingly, I didn’t have too much trouble soldering the corners together. Although, one slipped out of position so it wasn’t quite 90 degrees. I had a go at trying to gently heat it up and reposition it, but gave up when I just couldn’t get the hard solder to melt (this was a theme in this project…). Eventually, I left it alone (fear had set in by this point. I was terrified that the other 3 corners would get messed up!). I ended up filing the side flush, but I really wish that I had managed to move it. You see what I mean…
How to Make 8 Tiny Circles All the Same Size?!
This was a worry. I don’t own a disc cutter, so I was forced to cut the circles out by hand. But if I look for some good points in this picture – not only did I manage to hand cut and file eight 5mm circles out of 2mm thick copper. I also managed to sweat solder them in the right place, and didn’t accidentally melt any, or move them when I solder the rest of the piece together! Big cheer, please!
And then More All That Glitters Challenges Hit
Have you ever tried to make a locket hinge?! I haven’t! Until now that is… It looks really easy on TV or on YouTube. Trust me, it’s not. There’s definitely a reason why this technique is called advanced, and there’s also a reason why you should not start with a rectangular piece. It’s really difficult to put the groove in, so that you can position the tube for the hinge knuckles. Anyway, the official “All That Glitters’ Facebook page posted this video, which pretty much summed up how I felt!
I attempted this about eight times, in differing configurations. In the process, I melted 1 full length tube, and 4 middle section tubes. Yes, it meant I had to recut a 1cm middle section piece of tube to fit perfectly in between the other two pieces, more. than. once.
I started off trying to solder the full tube to the Lego case. But this proved incredibly difficult (I still haven’t sussed out the principle of soldering). My problem (I believe, someone correct me if I’m wrong) was that the copper takes much longer to heat than the silver. So I had to heat the Lego block, whilst holding onto the silver tube with reverse action tweezers and then place the tube onto the melted solder. It just wasn’t going to happen! Eventually, I soldered the full length tube to the back plate. Watch my video to see how I actually got it to solder in the end.
And for the eagle eyed among you… Those are my husband’s hands soldering the final tube in (by the time I’d spent 4 hours trying to solder the hinge on, I’d lost the will to live. Thank goodness for supportive husbands!)
Learnings
Despite my complaints about how hard this piece was to solder, I learnt a lot. Let’s see if I can sum it up:
- Planning – yes, I’m still on about the planning. My husband nags me constantly to plan my piece. Where will I put the bail, which side to put the hinge, etc. For this piece, planning was important to make sure I knew which order to solder all the pieces in, so that I didn’t melt (too badly) the existing solder joins. More practice needed!
- Soldering – My soldering is not perfect. I’m very much an amateur. But one cool thing was figuring out how to draw solder along the join. It was really fun watching it run along the join! And my sweat soldering as improved (at least a little), so there was not as much cleaning up to do! But I need to get to grips with heat sinks, as it’s baffling me why it takes so long to heat a piece (and why I managed to melt 3 tubes, but my husband managed to solder it on first time and using my bigger torch!)
There is more to learn though. For this piece, I really couldn’t figure out how best to polish it. I had tried to file all of the individual pieces before I joined them to the next piece, as I knew it would be hard to get into the cavity or between the little circles. I did my best… but the solder inside the cavity ran everywhere, and for the life of me, I couldn’t figure out how to file it back out. (That’s why there are no pictures of the inside!). Perhaps someone would be kind enough to leave me a comment with some tips on how I could have cleaned this up better.
My Final Word
I’m glad I managed to finish this locket in the end. I was really close to giving up this week and just soldering the back plate on and making a Lego pendant. Luckily, my husband came and gave me a hand when I got really fed up, and between us we managed to make something that looked half decent!
Perseverance really came into play this week. I’m sure my Taekwondo instructor would be proud; in Taekwondo, we have 5 tenets that we are meant to incorporate into our every day lives as martial artists. I think many people live by them anyway. They are: Courtesy, Integrity, Perseverance, Self-Control and Indomitable Spirit. I might need to work on my self-control after this project…!
Of course,I need to tidy it up – one of the hinge knuckles needs resoldering, the hinge pin needs sorting out, the jump ring could do with being tidier and the whole thing needs a polish. It’s going to be a long while before I attempt a locket, again! But, in the meantime, it’s another one I can tick off my bucket list!
See you next week for Week 5 of my All That Glitters Challenges (only 2 left to go!).
If you enjoyed this post, why not check out my videos over on my YouTube channel – I post a new project video every week!
