Making a Phantom of the Opera Inspired Pendant

Had a slight spanner in the works and had to deviate from the original plan to make a silver ring for my sister’s birthday present. But I think I’ve managed to make something better and that she’ll really love. To set the scene, my sister is a massive, and I mean massive, Phantom of the Opera fan. And I’m looking for something simple that I can make and that won’t take too much planning. Especially since her birthday is next weekend! Talk about last-minute! So I’ve opted to make a Phantom of the Opera mask pendant – here are the first sketches!

The idea is to make the two pieces separately, and only pierce an eye hole in the left piece (which will go on top).  That’s the theory, anyway. Here is it on paper.

The Making Process

So, now I’ve sawed the two pieces of metal and pierced out the eye hole (there’s nothing like really new shiny silver…):

And this is hopefully what the finished pendant will look like:

Next, I soldered my two pieces together and opted to give the back plate a patina, so that I had a contrasted finish.  It’s taken me around 5 attempts to get the patina right… I never realised that temperature and having a clean piece of silver were so key to getting this right! So I got as far as this and was pretty happy with the finish:

An Oops Moment…

Except I had forgotten to plan the bail! Today, I’ve learnt the importance of planning! Not to say that I had no idea what I wanted to do – the original thought was to drill a hole in the top and attach a pinch bail.  But… once I got to this stage, I realised that drilling a hole would make the whole piece look wrong. After some thought, I’ve decided that a hidden bail on the back is the way to go. I don’t actually have a hidden bail… so I’ve looked up what they look like on the internet and attempted to make my own:

More Oops Moments…

Of course, after I soldered on the bail, I needed to pickle the whole piece, which took off the patina… so I had to start again with the patina! 3 attempts later… and here is my finished piece!

I’m quite pleased with the overall result – hopefully my sister will be too!