A beautiful morning in San Francisco. I arrived at 8am on Friday ready to start my class.
The school is in the historic Phelan building which holds over 100 jewelry oriented businesses. Its right on Market street, so it was a lot of fun to go for walks at lunch time and see the sites.
My workstation at the school.
Raw materials for the class. Brass to practice soldering, sterling silver, and one piece of 14k gold wire.
Beginning jeweler at work
Our first project was a pair of sterling earrings. The pattern was chosen to give us lots of practice with sawing. Here's the piece after I finished cutting it out - it still has the paper pattern attached.
And here's all the saw blades I broke while working on it. But I definitely improved by the end!
The two disks cut out and filed to shape.
After using the wooden dapping blocks to dome the metal
After filing and polishing
Hmmm... We're supposed to make earings .. but it could be cool to solder them together like this!
Finished earrings (well as finished as I had time for ... the point was to practice all the processes but not necessarily to complete the project perfectly)
First soldering practice. We learned four different methods. Sweat, capillary, pick, and tension..
Lunch break - sitting at a cafe in the sun by the park, watching the seagulls swim in the fountain. This is the life.
I'm sure they would agree.
A gold ring and a silver ring.
Silver bezel pendant. We were so busy on the last day learning the skills to make a bezel pendant that I didn't even think about taking pictures of the process. The time flew by so fast!
Repousse and Chasing Oct 2-4 2009
First step was to spend a day learning how to make tools and making a basic set for the class projects.
Pattern 1
Pattern 2
Sheet of Argentium and sheet of copper set in the pitch and ready for repousse
Partway there. Using clay to see how the impression is looking
While we're looking out, he's looking in. I heard he stole some materials from the last class.
Done with the repousse. Ready for chasing!
Back in the pitch
Done with chasing. Sort of looks like the picture. :)
