How to Make a Loki Inspired Bracelet

Have you been watching Loki on Disney+? I have! My husband and daughter are big, big Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) fans… although she’s only 8, they’ve watched all of the movies together (except Deadpool and Venom, which we thought was a bit age inappropriate), as well as Wandavision and the Falcon and the Winter Solider. I have to admit that I quite like a bit of MCU, myself. (Ssh! Don’t tell them!). My favourite character is… dum da dum… Loki! I much prefer Loki over Thor – he’s smart, witty and seems to do the right thing… even if it is eventually! So what better way to celebrate the release of Loki on Disney+, but to make a bit of Loki inspired bling?!

A Tutorial

This week, I thought I’d shake things up a bit and give you a tutorial! I’ll include some links where I bought things, including a free printable, so you can have a go at making your own Loki bracelet. So, here we go!

You Will Need

Materials

Throughout my project, I have used sterling silver, but you can use whatever metal you want for your bracelet. My cabochon is a Malachite.

1. 5x5cm of 0.7mm thick metal sheet
2. 5cm of 3mm x 2mm D-wire (Approximately)
3. 10cm of 1.5mm x 1.5mm square wire
4. 3mm bezel wire (to fit your cabochon)
5. 5mm x 7mm oval cabochon
6. 240cm of 0.5 round wire
7. Scrap 0.5mm copper wire (at least 80cm, used to start the base loops for the crocheted chain)
8. A selection of hard, medium and easy flow solder
9. 4x 3mm chain ends
10. 4x jump rings
11. 1x clasp

Tools

1. Basic jeweller’s kit (think: saw, file, soldering torch and flux, soldering pick, 3rd hand, reverse tweezers, pliers, wire cutters, etc)
2. Jewellers pickle
3. Ferric Nitrate
4. An iron and ironing board
5. Blue Press n Peel paper
6. Vice
7. Wooden draw plate
8. Bezel roller
9. Burnisher
10. Emery paper / wet and dry paper (at least 600, 800 and 1200 grit)
11. Polishing kit (e.g. a Dremel or something similar)
12. Radial discs

Suppliers

NB I’m not affiliated with any of these suppliers. These just happen to be the places where I get my materials and have always had good service with them.

• Silver sheet, D-wire, square wire, solder, bezel wire, chain ends, magnetic clasps, jump rings – Cookson Gold
• Malachite cabochon – Burhouse Ltd
• Blue Press n Peel Paper – Amazon
• Ferric Nitrate – Etsy

Files

Step-by-Step

Make The Helmet

1. Print off and cut out the Loki helmet and the Loki name bar templates (see files above). You can cut the horns off the helmet – the horns will be made separately, later.
2. Glue the template to the sheet of 0.7mm metal (or use double-sided sticky tape. Or if you’ve got a steady hand, trace around the shape!)
3. Saw out your shape!
4. File the edges smooth and sand the surface of the metal, working your way through the emery paper grades, until no more scratches. Set aside for later.
   
   NB The more time you spend on this here, the better your finished product will be! (I really need to take more care with filing and polishing…)

Make The Name Bar

1. Print off the Loki Name template onto Blue Press n Peel paper. For best effect, use a black & white laser printer and enhance the image to the best possible quality that you can.
   
   (I’ve used Loki’s name in Norse characters, but you could equally personalise the name plate and put your own name! Just make sure you invert your name on your computer, if you are planning to print the file out rather than hand-write the character)

7. Once you’re happy with the iron transfer (don’t worry if it’s not 100% perfect, you just need to be able to see the letters clearly), you can tidy the image using a black permanent marker. You can also use black-out varnish (which I find more effective). Then you will need to black out every surface area that you do not want to be etched (i.e. everything except the letters).

Make The Horns

9. In the meantime, take the D-wire and 2 pieces approximately 2 cm long. Using a half-round file, file the tip into the shape of a horn. Use the helmet template as a guide. To get the horns the same shape, shape one horn first. Once you’re happy with it, use a bit of double sided sticky tape and stick the two horns together. Then file the 2nd one to match.
   
   NB To get the horn shape, I filed with the flat side of the file at approximately 45 degree angle. Once I’d removed enough material, I used the round side of the file to make a more concave shape.
10. Use your soldering torch to anneal both of the horns, pickle and rinse.
11. To curve the horns, place one end into a vice and secure in. Using half-round pliers, bend the horn to follow the shape of the template. Do it gradually and check the shape often! Repeat for both horns!
12. When you’re happy with the shape of the horns, place them onto the cut out helmet piece. Check that you’re happy with the length of the horns – you may need to cut a little bit off! Once the length is right, you can round off the ends with a needle file.
13. Use a permanent marker or a scribe to mark out the positions for the horns on the helmet (you might find it helpful to watch my video to see where I placed the horns!)

Make a Bezel

15. Measure and cut the bezel wire to fit your cabochon. File the ends and solder together, using hard solder. For more details on how to make a bezel, check out my post.
16. Solder the bezel to the centre of the helmet, using medium solder. Clean any excess solder. At this stage, go over the whole piece with emery paper to remove any scratches that have been introduced.

Make the Frame

22. Slot the two half hexagon pieces of wire together. There should be a slight overlap. Check the width against your helmet, you want the sides of the hexagon to be visible and enough at the bottom that you can solder the name plate on.

Finishing the Name Plate

27. Position the name plate onto the bottom part of the hexagon frame (check the overall look of your piece, so you know where to solder it!). Turn it over so that the name plate is face down on the soldering block. Flux both pieces, then apply medium solder. Pickle and rinse.

Add the Helmet

Make the Chain

29. Make the chain following the instructions from: Making Crocheted Chain – Let’s Make Professional Jewelry Journal
    
    For this project, I started the loops using copper wire (as it will be discarded anyway). Each chain was 4cm long before drawing it through the wooden draw plate, and finished up around 5.5cm after drawing down. You need two pieces the same length.
    
    NB You made need more / less wire to adjust the bracelet for the size of your wrist. You might be best measuring your wrist. Then deduct the width of the pendant from the measurement, divide by 2 and subtract 2cm for each half of the bracelet.
30. For this project, I soldered on end caps on each end of the chains, so that I could attach them to the pendant. You’ll find that you need to squash the ends down a little with pliers in order to fit the 3mm caps. Alternatively, you could make your own caps (I’ve not done this before, but will be at some point in the future, so hit subscribe to check in with me again!). Check my supplier list above for the source of my end caps.
    
    Soldering the caps on takes a bit of effort – use easy solder, so that you don’t inadvertently overheat (and melt!) your chain). Use 3rd hands and reverse tweezers to position everything – get in and out quickly! Check my video to see how I managed to (eventually) solder on the caps! Pickle, rinse and dry!

Assembly

31. To assemble the piece, you need to attach a jump ring on each side of the hexagon frame, then attach a chain to each side. You can solder the jump rings closed, if you wish – use easy solder to reduce the risk of melting the jump rings (yes, I had many casualties)!

Final Polish

33. Once you’ve pickled the final piece, you can polish everything in your preferred manner. I’m still learning with polishing, but think I’ve found the right way to do this going forwards.
    
    My suggestion is to use some radial discs and a pendant motor (I’ve got a Dremel 4000) to sand the pendant. I’ve just discovered these, and they’re great for getting into the small space between the bezel and the horns! (Wish I’d known about these for my previous cuff and sweetheart brooch!) These are the ones that I bought, in case you want to give it a try yourself!
    
    Then go over the pendant with Tripoli. Make sure you wash it off when you’re happy.
    
    The whole piece can now be polished with rouge (again, wash off before moving on).
    
    NB Use the radial discs and polish everything to your satisfaction BEFORE you set the stone! I didn’t and scratched my stone in the process… boo!

Set the Stone

34. The final step is to fit the stone! Push it into position, then use a bezel pusher or burnisher to press the edges over the stone. Make sure you move from one side to the opposite side, so that the stone is set evenly.

And there, you have it! You’ve made your very own Loki inspired bracelet! Hopefully it looks something like this (or better!)

If you’ve had a go at making this, please do share some photos with me! I’d love to see! You can tag me on Instagram or Facebook, or leave me a comment below!

In the meantime, I’m off to watch Episode 4 of Loki! Until next time!