Sunday evening and the kids are in bed (phew!). It’s been a funny Sunday. You know that feeling when you’ve hit the end of the week and you know Monday is just around the corner, but you really can’t motivate yourself to do anything? Yes? No? Maybe just me! Anyway, I got to around 2pm, my youngest had been taken off for his nap by his Dad, and my eldest was busy playing video games. So I figured I had an hour or two to myself, and why not get the jewellery stuff out and try and lift my mood? It’s been quite a long time since I tried to work on any jewellery pieces during the daytime! Also, my lovely sister (who I know is reading this blog!) has been patiently waiting for me to fix her Phantom of the Opera pendant for about 8 years… yes, I’m horrendous.
My excuse… well, I don’t really have a valid excuse. When she asked me to sort it out, I think I’d just given birth, or at least, had quite a young baby. I don’t know what my excuse has been more recently… I mean, my youngest is 4 years old! And also, the pendant itself is fine… only the leather cord had snapped, so it should have been a really easy repair job. Haha… such is life!
So, here’s the original pendant:
It fascinates me that I made this back in 2011… I mean that’s 10 years ago! How time flies… If you’d like to see how I made this pendant back then, hop over to my original blog post.
Settling Down with a Cup of Tea…
So, I rolled up my figurative sleeves (I was wearing a t-shirt at the time), made a cup of tea (I’m showing my age now) and set to work (I say “work”, but really, I was playing!)
I’d already bought a leather necklet from Cookson Gold to replace the broken thread. But out of courtesy, I fired my sister a quick WhatsApp message to check that she was still cool with the black cord. Or if she’d prefer me to make her an actual chain this time. Luckily, black cord is still good with her! Phew!
As you can see, the silver has started to oxidise… I mean, it has been sat in my jewellery box for 8 years. So I figured, I’d better give it a little polish. I used Goddards Long-Term Silver Polish. I’d bought it a little while ago to try and polish up an oxidised ring, with a pretty good outcome, so I opted for this as a quick solution rather than get the sandpapers out.
It worked pretty well, and I was trying really hard to avoid removing the original patina from the lower section of the pendant. I think it scrubs up pretty nicely, don’t you?
Yet Another “Oops” Moment
Ok, so now the pendant was all cleaned up, I was ready to attach it to the necklet… but of course, I hadn’t measured the width of my bail vs. the cord width. And of course, I couldn’t get it on the necklet at all!
I considered a number of options to try and resolve the problem, without needing to buy a new cord or thread. So, here were my options:
- Make a new chain, which would give me loads of practice on making chain links. The thing is, I think the pendant looks really nice, off-set against the black cord.
- Cut the end of the cord, thread the pendant on and then stick the finding back on… this seemed too risky for me. I’m pretty sure the finding would not be as strong if I tried to re-attach it.
- Make a new bail and use this to attach onto the cord. Of all the options, this seemed the most sensible to me, so I went with that!
Research…
I did a quick bit of research (thank you, YouTube!) and came across this great video by Sandy Huntress, which showed how to make coiled bails (take a look – it’s a good tutorial!). Since I’m still without a soldering torch, this looked like the best way forwards. So, out came all my tools. Now, Sandy shows you how to make the coiled bail using bail pliers, but since I don’t have any, I used a Beadathon jump ring maker. I might need to make a wish list for the kids… UK Mother’s Day is just around the corner…
It did pretty much the same job. I used the second smallest mandrel, but by the time I got to about half way, I realised that the bail was much too big for the cord, so I remade it with the smallest mandrel (bear with me, you’ll see as I go!). I suppose you can only live and learn!
Making the Bail
I cut a 20cm piece of 20-gauge copper wire. The colour of copper wire is really starting to appeal to me, so I thought it might be a nice contrast to the silver. I should have made it longer really as I didn’t leave enough for the end coil. For my second attempt, I cut a 25 cm piece of wire. I coiled the wire around the mandrel 7-8 times, taking care to make sure each loop was sitting flush next to the previous one.
Then I pretty much followed the instructions from the YouTube video to create a loop from which to hang the pendant, and then add a decorative coil (have a look at my video if you want to see my personal making process!).
Making the loop was quite tricky and it took me a few goes to get it (almost) right. There seemed to be some nuances in making the bail loop, which I expect will come with experience. For example, how to get it dead centre? Mine seems to be a bit off-centre. And then, do I start the securing wrap under or over the loop? Decisions, decisions…
So, after a pleasant hour of “me time”, this is what I came up with:
I’m pretty pleased with it, as it feels like it hangs properly now. The decorative element makes the piece look more unique, whilst still keeping everything quite simple and clean lined. I like the contrasting colours, which I think gives it a little bit of interest. I’ve shown it to my sister, and she seems happy with it… now let’s see if it takes me another 8 years to post it back to her!
I think the Pendant looks Great. Kind of simple yet it says something. I like the mystery of it, I think you did a great job on the Bail to. I dont think i could make it. Give me a torch and silver wire and i can make something but ive tryed and tryed to wire wrap and can never get it the way it should be and the way i would like it to be..Speaking of my,,, Torch is putting out about half the heat i need. I resorted to a Propane torch for now because i had one handy. There dangerous, sometimes if you tilt the bottle at to much of an angle it flames up.Scared the Shine”ola out of me the first time it flared up.lol…Now its going to take even longer to finish this ring ive been working on for weeks now. Im going to try and post a step by step,or instructional video on my next project.
Keep up the good work and instructions video’s. Maybe we can help each other learn some new stuff. I could learn the wire wrapping from you, I think. Maybe i could help you with the good old SilverSmithing. Ive come a long ways since i first saw your work. I guess i should as its now well over a year tinkering with this stuff. I am pretty good at Identifiying GemStones,Been at that for many years.That started the Jewelry making for me.But i still buy 50 to 100 carat parcels just to ID the Gems.
GemMan’ology Man
Aww, thank you. It’s quite an old one. I expect if I learnt a few more skills, I’d probably make it differently next time. But still, my sister was happy with it (I suspect she’d have liked to wear it at some point in the past few years, but never mind!)
The wire wrap is going well, but I do miss the torch. I think wire wrap takes a lot of practice (which is why my first two projects focused on the chain links!), and I’m glad I started with copper first. I must say, copper colour is starting to grow on me now! I think there are a lot of nuances with wire wrap that didn’t occur to me, like not snapping thin wire and how best to hold the wire to avoid making kinks… learning process…
Looking forward to doing some silversmithing… hopefully in the next few weeks. I’ve cleaned out my workshop space (mostly), just need to give it a final clean, sort out my tools and wait for my husband to put in some workbench space. Now the weather is turning nicer, I’m less inclined to say “oh, I’ll wait until it’s not raining!).
Looking forward to seeing your videos, blog articles and pieces! And yes, definitely, there’s always something to learn and good to learn with another person!
Best Wishes!
I like the Copper Jewelry look but can’t put up with the skin turning green from wearing it. I’ve worn Copper cuff bracelets before and they turned. My skin. I wonder if. They. Make a treatment to keep. It from turning your skin? See that’s how much I know about it. I did make some pieces when I first started this, copper made good. Practice I think.
Let me know if you are able to find the books I recommended in my other comment. Hope you can find them. Hope you can find the pliers I’m posting photos of on Twitter. They are comfortable but I had to re~glue the handle grips because they started twisting around loosely, twisted about 45 degrees and made it very irritable and uncomfortable. A little glue fixed it right up though.
Take Care,
GemMan’ology Man
I agree, the copper is making good practice. And as I’ve been working with it for about a month now, I’m finding the colour is growing on me. I was worried about it tarnishing and turning the skin green. But I’ve been wearing the necklace I made (blog post to follow soon!) for the last few days and no noticeable green yet! I’ve bought some Renaissance Wax, which I believe is meant to stop things tarnishing too much and I’m going to experiment with it soon. Will update on how that goes! I’ve also bought some non-tarnish copper wire. It’s coated in something to prevent tarnishing. Again, I’ll be experimenting with it and will update on my blog how it goes!
Best Wishes!