freeze frame

some time ago i made a square ring.

there s a long story behind that, which i m not going to divulge here...

well, actually, yes, i am.

why?

because i made that square ring as a challenge.

during the summer we visited a market where young, as yet 'unknown', entrepreneurs were selling their products/wares... and most were either jewellers or fashion designers, but one jeweller s work jumped out at me.

now, before i go on, you must know, at the school where i m following my goldsmithing course, we are encouraged to share ideas and techniques. and, come on, ever since the first man or woman decided to hang a wild animal tooth on a leather string around his/her neck as a talisman or just to show off, humankind has been making things to beautify, to mystify, to show off wealth... and when a new concept, or a new technique was discovered, everybody was free to elaborate and make something better or more beautiful or useful...

anyway, so this jeweller s work stood out. it was a square ring, and i was intrigued. i loved that it fit snugly and comfortably, and i asked him how he had done it.

me and my mouth.

i won t even write what his girlfriend said.

on my way home i was already thinking how i could make one. and the next day i did.

using my bench-vice, i pulled and folded the strip of silver, turned it, pulled it again into a 90° corner, soldered, sanded and polished the thing, and it worked.

so there.

but then i found me a square mandrel! YES!

perfect corners.

freeze frame

best of all is not the fact that i now know i can make a square ring.

best is that i know there are other people, like my classmates, who enjoy making new pieces and discovering new techniques, and who don t mind at all about sharing ideas.

like this one; you might think this ring has been hammered, but it hasn t. oh yes, i did start out by hammering, but the effect was almost unnoticeable, because the metal would tend to spread out more and if i had continued, the ring would have become wider and thinner, which wasn t the objective.

so my teacher showed me how to get that hammered effect, by using a very small round burr and a very tiny sanding wheel...

time to test that technique out on something else now, hmmmm.