I finally started to make my husband’s Christmas present. He’s my biggest fan (aah!), but he’s also a big Tottenham Hotspurs fan! So it seems only fitting that I make some Spurs-inspired cufflinks! Come On You Spurs!
I’ve planned to use the Spurs logo, setting copper onto a sterling silver backing. Luckily, I have an official Spurs pin, so I’ve been able to trace the shape!
Practise (and Patience) is the Way to Go!
Something that I’ve noticed this weekend, is that after 4 months of practising, I’ve finally mastered sawing metal! My speed is improved, turning corners is easier and my fingers don’t hurt (as much). I guess it’s true, practice really does make perfect. So, my first cut of the Spurs logo came out a little bit blobby, and I decided it needed some refining.
Refinement took most of the day – first, carefully inking in the details of the logo with a black fine liner. Then I went over the lines with a scribe and carefully sawed over the lines and filed the remainder down to the line. Very painstaking work, but well worth it!
Trying Out Engraving…
I wanted to put some detail on the logo itself – if you’ve ever looked at the Spurs logo, you can see the details of the ball and some details of the cockerel’s face. So, I figured I would try engraving, using my Dremel 400.
Luckily for me, I opted to try it out on a piece of scrap copper first. It turned out engraving with a Dremel was much harder than I anticipated. If I’d gone straight for my final piece, I would have had to start sawing the shape out all over again! Yikes!
Here’s the result on my practice piece, which all things considered, wasn’t a bad first attempt. I will definitely be giving it some more practice! Not entirely a disaster – the trick seems to be using the lowest speed setting and holding the tool firmly and fairly upright. Straight lines are the most difficult. The tool seems to have a tendency to run off with me, but filling in gaps doesn’t seem too bad. Still, a lot, lot more practice required.
Trying an Alternative to Engraving…
So I figured the next best way to try to get some detail onto the copper was to use a technique described in Tim McCreight’s book “The Complete Metalsmith” – solder inlays. I attempted to draw the detail in with a scribe, and then melted some hard solder chips into the gaps. It was a semi-disaster! It was very difficult to control where the solder went, and I don’t think the recesses were deep enough – I would definitely need to make those deeper to prevent the solder going over the gaps. Since I didn’t want to start again, I filed off a lot of the solder and left some silver/copper patterns, which looked vaguely interesting.
I’m quite pleased that both logos look more or less the same – double-sided sticky tape is an amazing invention! I sawed out slightly larger versions of the Spurs logo in sterling silver, to back the copper pieces:
A Bit Challenging…
The difficulty with this design is that it’s very difficult to file and polish the back plate as there’s not much room to manoeuvre. One tip is to get reverse tweezers to hold the pieces together and on their side – it’s easier to use gravity to get the solder to flow. I used medium solder to join the pieces (as I’d already used hard solder for the patterns on the copper). The cufflinks were soldered on the back with easy solder. And here are the finished cufflinks!
Hoping my hubby will like these! All that’s left to say is “Come On You Spurs”!
