Tuesday, March 29, 2011

RAW # 12 (ring a week)

My week 12 ring for the RAW challenge had some issues....it is made from sterling silver and "brass" and is set with 3 garnets. The "brass" was a scrap piece that my dad gave me from his stock pile of metals he has had in his basement for years. I don't know what kind of "brass" it is but it did something I have never seen happen before when I soldered the 2 metals together. If you look closely at the ring you can see what I mean. All around the edge of the "brass" and under the bezels you can see a melted/wrinkled looking thing going on. I did not use an over abundance of solder on this piece so I know it is not the solder. I don't know if the "brass" was coated with something that I didn't know about or maybe the metal wasn't really brass like I had been told. So I'm not sure exactly what happened there but it only happened to the "brass" and it happened consistently and evenly all around the ring. And since it was so consistent I decided instead of trashing the ring and starting over that I would to keep it as an added detail. I do really like the curve of this ring. The way it hugs is SO comfortable on the finger that I will be making more rings with the same curved shape in the future....although I probably will stay away from the rest of that "brass" I have left over!


7 comments:

Catherine Witherell said...

I think that edge is pretty cool. It's beautifully shiny too!

Unknown said...

I think it looks cool. Like its been welded.

Michele Grady said...

I thought so too...it's a "happy accident"! :)

Maria Apostolou said...

Weird...maybe it wasn't brass. But what metal could it be? I'm glad that you kept it though. This is definitely a "happy accident"!

Michele Grady said...

Maria, I have no idea what else it could be. That's why I thought it was very strange...but I still liked it :)

Joan said...

I have read that silver can have low melting alloys with various things. You cannot fire bronze clay in contact with silver (without lots of precautions at least) as the tin in bronze alloys with the silver and the result has a very low melting point. Maybe your brass had tin? The term brass and the term bronze get used in pretty sloppy ways sometimes. The ring is a beaut anyway.

Michele Grady said...

Joan you could be right. I just read something similar in one of my past copies from yrs back of "Jewelry Artist Magaizine" where they were talking about the difference between brass and bronze sheet. Maybe the metal is bronze....

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