017
19 - 21 June 2023
The final week has arrived.
I continue using ball burrs to open up the holes for the halo and trimmed the collet down to 1.5mm high. I scribed a circle on the halo to mark where the collet would sit, and filed a flat surface for them to sit flush together.
Next, I used binding wires to secure the collet & the halo and soldered them, remembering not to dunk the piece in the pickle until the binding wires were taken off (steel binding wires would render the pickle all pink).
A hole was drilled and filed inside the collet, the bands were filed to the right height, and all the components were soldered in place. Last but not least, a good tripoli and dialux bleu polish and the ring is done (or at least this is the stage that a bench jeweller would get to before sending this piece off to a professional stone setter).
It was a shame that we couldn’t set any stones for this piece and the “final” product looks a bit like a rotary phone but I’m glad we gave it a crack. And of course, celebratory drinks were had after the final workshop class!
This week’s wrap up:
• Used a 1.5mm and 1.9mm ball burr
• Used Auflux as Tenacity was too lumpy for the binding wire
• Used strings to clean up the hard to reach areas
• And now, we wait for results…