Buckle Alchemy

This project started when a collector called me to see if I could make a buckle for 1 1/2 belts from a spear head he found about 20 years ago. It all depended on how wide the spear point was of course so I had him send it to me. That size is pretty rare in a perfect condition spear point so I was pretty amazed when this beauty shower up.  

As luck would have it, this one was just barely wide enough for 1 1/2 belts.

I made an open face box mold with silicon and then made a wax impression from it

The wax is then changed into silver using the ancient process of lost wax casting. The wax model is surrounded with a special high temp plaster and the wax is burned out.  The hollow left in the plaster is then filled with the molten silver using centrifugal force or vacuum assist. Shown here is the rough casting after an acid bath to remove oxides from the surface leaving a layer of frosty white pure silver. 

Pictured here is the original stone point on the left and a bronze patinated casting. The bronze version looks a little smaller but that is mostly a camera thing. There is some shrinkage in the wax model as it cools and in the metal as it cools but it's not really noticeable  it still fit the 1 1/2 belts

This is a silver copy with the stone original. This project was for a custom limited edition buckle, It's not available on my site.

I have also made a buckle from a spear head found by my brother in New England. It fits 1 1/4 in belts.  You can see that here. I make it in silver and bronze.
If you have an object like a sharks tooth or arrow head or even a sea shell that you think would make a unique belt buckle, get in touch with me and we will see if I can perform some magic and turn it into silver.
 contact me at www.jewelryartstudio.com/studio

A 3 year (so far) Custom Project

This Project started about 3 years ago when a customer wanted a special chain made to celebrate her 88th birthday. We came up with a design that incorporated the 88 into a Mobius infinity band.  I made a heavy silver link chain to go with it. The next year we went to a smaller link about the size of the ones I made for the chain. The 89 posed some design problems but we came up with something slightly abstract with the 9 sort of flipped to balance the  shape within the frame of the link. This year we returned to the link size to make the link for 90 but the customer wanted some gold. She had the idea that the number should be the gold in the shape of the Roman Numeral for 90. I also made an extra link for everyday wear. www.jewelryartstudio.com

I also made an extra link for everyday wear

Custom Bracelets with Elks Tooth and Green Stone

Bracelets made for the customers stones

This bracelet started with this pendant.  The customers heir loom piece was a pendant she never wears so she wanted to make it into a cuff bracelet

I have all the parts made and ready to assemble

the parts , at long last, are all soldered together

The second bracelet is a clasp bangle using an elks tooth provided by the customer.  I had to cut the oot off and slightly reshape the tooth in order to make a bezel for it

The bezel is made and soldered in place after shaping the silver wire around it

The clasp at the back is soldered up and ready for the custom cut tooth part I'm shaping into a 5mm stone

finished elks tooth bracelet

You can see other bracelets ready made on my websites here and on my Etsy Store here

 

Elks Teeth Jewelry

This project stated when  customer came to me with these elks teeth. Souvenirs from a hunting trip. The idea is to make a pendant and a pair of earrings 

These are the natural teeth as I received them

I reshaped them and sanded the bottoms flat in preparation of setting them.

Here the wax models are ready to cast.  The teeth can't be heated up so they have to be removed from the wax for the next step

The wax has been transformed into silver and the and the teeth are being adjusted to get the fit back in the cup.

The finished product. . If you have an idea for a project contact me here

Beach Pebble Jewelry

Today I started culling through one of my bags of beach pebbles to look for something that I could use for a repair job. The customer had lost one of her post earrings with dangle beach pebbles. I was trying to find a pebble to match the remaining earring, but didn't have any luck. I did find one small basalt pebble thick enough to cut down the middle to make a bookmatched pair. That's when the repair job turned into a custom job. I used a cut off disk to grind through the pebble and slice it down the middle.

Here is the finished pair.

I really enjoyed working with beach pebbles again. I don't get to do this as often as I would like. I have a stock pile of ocean tumbled pebbles from nearly clear quartz to black basalt, and every color in between. I've collected these pebbles from my travels along the East coast from Long Island to Florida. Contact me if you have any interest in beach pebble jewelry. I'm willing to work with any pebbles you have or we can sift through my collection to find the right match for your style. 

Check my website for samples of previous work involving beach pebbles. I've made a quartz heart shaped ring and a beach pebble crashing waves pendant. 

Approaching storm cup Process

This was a custom cup done as a gift from my customer to a friend as a wedding cup.  Unfortunately I couldn't get the video to work.

I start out by using card stock to figure out the size and shape of the cup to get a template

Once it is transferred to the  silver I cut the rough shape out and start to texture it with hammers.

 After hammering, the metal becomes work hardened and must be annealed to soften it up for forming and more texturing

 I used 2 or 3 different hammers to get the texture I wanted

 It took several annealings to get all the texturing done.  The idea was go from intense texture on one end to subtle or no texture on the other and fade and grade as the cup turns.

 Unfortunately I didn't get any pictures of soldering the cup into a cone and applying the bottom

The finished cup holds about 2 oz.  good for use as a shot cup or a sake cup. 

Custom Pendant

This was an interesting job. A friend had this bottle cap as a keep sake from a trip to Japan. One of her favorite beers discovered on a brewery tour. She wanted to make it into a pendant


I cut the rim off. I had to do it in 2 stages to get the right height but that turned out to be a good thing because I made earrings out of the rims. I made a silver bezel cup to fit and covered it with plexi to protect the cap and set it in the bezel

She loved it

Custom ring with stone

A recent custom job of designing a silver ring with a catseye stone the customer had


After several design sessions we came up with a good solution to his idea of basing the design on the yin yang symbol. This is the rough casting in silver with the bezel ready to be soldered in and the stone set. 

the finished design