And there's More...Experimentation week Part II

So.  I expect all to be on tenterhooks to hear about my further adventures.

Thursday - Fusing, etching and rolling 

I'd read quite a lot and been inspired by the excellent book The Jewellers Directory of Decorative Finishes by Jinks McGrath.  Especially wanted to try etching then fusing metals, followed by rolling and pressing them with other etched & textured pieces to see what occurred.

Fusing basically means joining metals together without the use of solder.

Reading for futher info my new Goldsmithing book (too light a word for such a bibilical work of technical geekery), by the marvellously named Professor Dr Erhard Brepohl and translated from the original German by the guy who runs the encyclopaedic Ganoskin website, I came across a quote which most jewellers will relate to:

'Every goldsmith discovers fusing, usually by accident and usually as a mistake, when pieces being soldered are overheated'

Oh yeah, I hear you there, Professor Doctor.

He also explained how the technique had been much frowned upon in the past as just things going a bit (very) wrong, but that now it was OK, as long as it is used as a definite part of a design, and works better in contrast with areas of simple shiny metal. In other words, I suppose, a phrase oft-used by me, and handed down from my mother, it needs to 'look meant'.

It also gave me a chance to use my new splendid Sievert torch with ultra-needle flame to really focus the heat on specific parts of the metal.  I made a video, but unfortunately since I couldn't zoom, you couldn't see what I was doing. It would have been fabulous otherwise, AND you couldn't see my double chin.

ANYWAY, here's what I did:

First experiment, working on the principle that fine silver (100% silver as opposed to sterling which is 7.5% copper) doesn't tarnish:

The bird is fine silver, fused to sterling silver which has been reticulated (heated so it distorts, melts, ripples and can be moved about).

I really like this effect, which will be heightened when I get round to emerying and polishing the bird to a high shine, and patinating the Sterling to darken it further.  Sometimes I struggle with getting the contrast I want in my pieces, and I think this could be quite a revolutionary discovery for me.


Moving on.....

This is a piece of fine silver which I'd already etched, onto which I laid slivers of gold.  The whole piece was heated until the gold melted and fused into the silver.  I also (carefully!) melted the top edges of the piece to make a random landscap-y pattern, and the hole melted into it was of course entirely intentional.

Fine silver wire woven into a pattern and fused on to a piece of sterling.
The blue/green mottling is flux (borax) used to help everything flow.

The first piece fused onto the second piece.  This has the potential to be a pretty good landscape, and I'll probably attempt to set a stone in a gold bezel in the top left-hand corner. (More practice, yay!)

Then a less successful attempt at rolling, fusing, etching, more fusing and rolling.  I do like the hole though!

 Some stages were quite good and I can't find the photos.  But some of the fine silver seemed to get lost or etched away (strange, as I would have thought the sterling would etch before the fine silver, having more copper content) and the gold seemed to get absorbed.  According to Jinks McGrath (another great name), this can happen when 9ct gold gets too hot and dissolves into the silver.

So lots more to play about with, but rather expensive experiments when gold's involved. A day isn't nearly enough to explore all those layers of possiblities (rubbing hands together with glee, then rubbing hands together with brie, which is a lot more smelly.*)

I think I'll also experiment more with the different metals fused together and their subsequent reaction to etching as there are exciting possibilities here.

Next time, enamelling........

*Apologies to Andy Stanton, author of the Mr Gum books, another must-read when all the goldsmithing geekery gets too much.