Getting Tricky with Silver and Turquoise- Metalsmithing

Hi, friends!

It's time for another installment of Caitycat Making Cool Stuff! This time around I wanted to use this very pretty piece of Hubei Chinese Turquoise that I've been hanging onto for a while. I wanted the piece to be more than just setting the stone to be worn as a ring... I wanted to embellish it a bit.

I had some silver scraps sitting around so went ahead and melted them in a process called granulation. Silver forms a perfect ball all on it's own when melted, so all I had to do was point my torch at a piece long enough for it to melt, creating different sized balls. I decided that it would be cool to add some silver balls to the ring for some visual interest & texture, to accent the turquoise.

Here I am deciding on the design. I had already measured and soldered the bezel wire for the stone

Soldering the three balls into the right place on the backplate was tricky, but not as difficult as I thought it would be.

I am starting to get the hang of soldering... or, at least, remembering what I should be doing for the best efficiency and results instead of just heating blindly and then getting frustrated when the solder doesn't flow.

2 out of the planned 3 balls soldered.

All 3 balls soldered, now checking to see how the stone & bezel look & mapping out where to solder on the bezel wire to complete the setting.

When I soldered the bezel wire to the backplate, I had to be careful not to go too hot and risk the solder that was already holding the balls in place melting into the wrong spot. It went pretty well- only taking 2 tries. After attaching the bezel wire I was able to start filing & sanding the excess away and rounding curves & corners to make the pieces come together as one. It's my favourite part- smoothing out edges and making seams disappear.

in the process of filing away the excess backplate...

sanding off seams and smoothing things out to become a single piece.

looking good! just testing out the stone in the setting here... time to polish and then solder on a ring shank.

The tricky part was deciding what type of ring shank to use for this design. Admittedly, I should have had this decision made long before I made the first cut to start this piece. I took some photos with the stone and setting sitting on different shank styles to try and decide which one to use:

Rectangle wire

Half round wire

Double half round wire

This band cut from sheet

I ended up going with the half round, as you can see in the main photo.

After soldering the setting to the ring shank and polishing to a nice shine, it was time to set the stone. This is when I realized that I had a huge flaw in my design. How was I supposed to get a tool into the space between the balls and the bezel wire in order to push the bezel over the stone properly?? I tried my best, but it could use a little refining.

You can see at the bottom of the stone, the bezel still needs a bit of smoothing work. But, until I get my hands on a little brass point pusher thingy to get into that tiny space, it will have to stay like that.

All in all though, I'm quite proud of this ring. It's very comfortable, and looks super cool, even with the little bit of roughness around the bottom edge of the stone. The rest of the bezel came out perfectly, and all my solder joints are solid. This one is a win!

Also excited to be checking out #creativecoin after the first CCC airdrop this week! Very exciting to see a space forming for us creatives! Check out the front end at https://www.creativecoin.xyz/ if you wish, or just check out and use the #creativecoin tag!