Tips & Techniques: Annealing

Tips & Techniques

 A Discussion of Jewelry Making Tips & Techniques

A little over a year ago I started exploring a new realm of jewelry making techniques to increase my skill base and was very, very excited at the thought of finally being able to use the new the mini-torch I added to my tool collection – I’d finally be able to anneal, solder and apply color to my designs.  You see I’ve been creating wire jewelry for several years and have gotten very comfortable with my abilities in cold join jewelry making creating well over a hundred one of a kind earring designs, bracelets, pendants and necklaces, and I felt it was time to fulfill a burning desire (no pun intended) to increase my design knowledge and skills I desperately wanted to freshen-up my range of jewelry offerings and add a new level of quality in craftsmanship, and design.

I’m not a person that starts out slow deliberately practicing a new technique until they get it right to their own brand of standards, I’m not hasty either, I just learn better in a hands on environment and I like to jump right in and get my hands dirty from the start, learning what does and doesn’t work with every step of the process as I create each new piece. This I think is where expertise comes to the forefront of a passionate art such as jewelry making, painting, and sculpting to name a few, but our focus will remain on wire jewelry making techniques for this article series so I invite you to get comfortable at your work bench and let’s get right down to business because I want to tell you more about a new technique I learned recently called....

 

Annealing

With the new skill of annealing and heating the copper and silver wire I typically use in my sculpted wire jewelry designs I easily can sculpt the wire into different shapes and give each piece a different finish. One of my favorite pieces to create is earrings another favorite is rings which I am still working diligently to seamlessly create. I love these two pieces which are staples of my everyday ensemble creating simple designs because simple elegance is timeless. Annealing helps to simplify the creation of my sculpted wire designs because by definition annealing is applying heat to soften the wire rendering it malleable which enables you to easily bend it into coils, circles, any geometric shape or arch your sculpted wire design calls for. What’s important to note here is that all metals have different temperature points at which they will begin to melt and each needs to be quenched in water to cool properly and for you to be able to comfortably handle and manipulate it into your chosen design. 

You can use this chart that I have re-created for you to determine the best annealing temperature of the metal you may be annealing.

Annealing Temperature Chart

METAL	ANNEALING TEMP	MELTING TEMP	QUENCH
Copper	1110-12900	19750	Immediately
Silver	1110-12000	16350	Below 9300
Carat gold	1200-13800	1535-18300	Refer to technical data
White gold	1200-13800	1670-24000	Refer to technical data
Platinum	1110-18300	31900	Air cool then quench in water

Chart by Jinks McGrath excerpt from the book The Encyclopedia of Jewelry Making Techniques; 1995 (Running Press: Philadelphia; London)

 

Annealing with a Torch

A good way to anneal your wire, flat, or plate metal is to use a torch where you can regulate the heat produced. I have found it easier to use a propane torch rather than my mini-torch which uses butane. In my experienced opinion the butane mini-torch is a larger version of a cigarette lighter in regards to the heat it produces, I found it took longer for my wire to reach the proper temperature of annealing even when my flame was turned on high, so I think I’ll just keep mine in the kitchen to brown the tops of my Meringue peaks and crisp the caramel on those delicious Crème Brule’ cups. 

Annealing Torch

Tips: the Annealing Flame

The most effective flame to use when you anneal is a large “reducing” flame where the tip of the orange core meets the blue outer shell of the flame (about an inch from the torch tip). Run the flame over the surface of your metal until it reaches the appropriate temperature and turns color, with copper it will turn pinkish and with silver it will be grayish just before they turn red. You will notice that when you move the heat source copper wire will show the colors of a peacock, silver will be black this discolored coating is called fire scale and can be removed when placing your soldered or finished piece in a pickle solution. I suggest you watch carefully not to overheat your material and risk reaching its melting temp or having it turn brittle when placing it in your quenching bath.

Don’t let the thought of applying heat to your material intimidate you, it’s so much fun and really not as difficult as it sounds. But you decide how to proceed may want to start slow and practice on left over scrap wire until you’re comfortable annealing because believe me, I’ve melted my fair share of scrap wire learning just the right temp, the right position, and duration to hold the flame over my work. You know what works best for you in learning a new skill so use your best judgment in the use of your new technique and jewelry making skill when creating your fresh new design.

Annealed Copper Wire Earrings

Oh, I almost forgot, another important detail you’ll need to consider when choosing wire materials is the hardness or tensile strength of your wire. Wire created specifically for jewelry making is sold in several different strengths; soft, dead soft, hard and half hard, keep this in mind when you’re purchasing your design materials because your materials strength will define the process you’ll need to use in the creation of your wire jewelry or wire sculpture design. I do not recommend using a soft or dead soft fine silver wire for making rings because in my experience even work hardening (hammering) in the sizing process will not strengthen the ring to render it non-malleable leaving it vulnerable to becoming misshaped. You don’t want leave your customers disappointed with their purchase so choose to use a stronger material when creating your gorgeous ring designs and I’ll talk more about soldering and pickle solutions at a later time so until then, get your gloves, your safety glasses and your torch and start annealing, I can’t wait to see your new wire jewelry designs.  

Do you create hot join, fused metal or wire jewelry and have any advice for someone just starting out? Please leave a comment and tell us about your experience.

Wire Wrapping Jewelry

Wire Wrapping Jewelry

The Art of Wire Wrapping Jewelry

I’ve seen recurring trends throughout the last eight years that I’ve been hand crafting beaded and wire jewelry. One most prevalent design trend that I’ve noticed is the jewelry design technique of wire wrapping. Wire wrapping is a jewelry design technique commonly used in pendant necklaces, and a great example of the technique is the popular “Tree of Life” pendant with its wire strands wrapped to form a tree with several bead embellished branches. The basic purpose of wire wrapping enables cut cabochons, gemstone nuggets, cameos, coins, and beads to be used as pendants adding a focal embellishment to a chain or a strand of beads. The wire wrapping technique is also popular in creating other jewelry pieces such as bracelets and rings as well.

If you are contemplating a wire wrapping jewelry project and it’s your first attempt, don’t get discouraged if it doesn’t turn out as you envisioned at first, just keep trying and soon you will find that like many other things wire wrapping jewelry will get easier with practice and you’ll be an expert in a short amount of time. And if you’ve ever made wrapped loops for your dangle earrings or bead charms then you’ve taken the first step and you know that your wrap must fit snuggly around the frame and sit directly next to the previous wrap for the best looking wrap.

Many of today’s handmade wire jewelry designers are using almost every wire style available in their wire wrapping jewelry projects. Flat wire with stamped patterns add a dazzling uniqueness to a wrapped cabochon or crystal pendant and look especially nice as the center wire in the frame of the cabochon and as the primary frame wire around the crystal. Some wire wrapped jewelry artists utilize the same gauge wire throughout the entire design while others utilize a smaller gauge frame such as a 16, 18 or 20 gauge wire and higher gauge wrap like 22 or 24 gauge wire which adds a dimensional character to the piece but also allows the use of smaller bead embellishments.

When wrapping a cabochon stone, you’ll typically be using three wires as the base of the cab frame and one wire as the wrap wire tying the frame together. The two outer wires typically called the first and second primary frame wires for your wire wrapping project will be of round, twisted, or square shaped wire stock and should be of half hard tensile strength for sturdy support of your chosen pendant piece. The third or secondary center frame wire is where you can add a decorative stamped wire if you desire but remember that this wire should be the same thickness as the outer frame wires.

Common wire styles used as the wrap wire are round and half round wire stock and of a soft or dead soft tensile strength. Soft and dead soft wires are the easiest to manipulate in order to wrap snuggly around your pendant frame. As the wrap wires function is to tie the frame wires together these must be wrapped tightly around your frame. A good practice to get your-self into when creating a wire wrapped jewelry piece is to tighten the wrap every two or three turns. To do this you will need your flat or chain nose pliers, place the jaws of the pliers on the wrap wire parallel to the flat surface of the frame, clamp down slightly and give the wires a twist in the same direction of your wrap. If you’re wrapping a single frame wire that is round I find it easier to tighten my wrap using my crimping pliers but again if I’m using square wire I’ll use my flat nose pliers to tighten the wrap around my frame wire.

I recently designed and created a pair of 22 gauge sterling and copper drop ear wires embellished with facet cut Citrine rondeles and Peridot heishe natural gemstones. I used 22gauge square half hard sterling to hand form the single piece ear wire drop and gave them a slight convex curve so the bottom of the ear wire faced the back of the head. And although 22gauge is thin I filed the corners of the square wire round towards the bottom end and used a reamer to enlarge the stringing hole in my natural gemstone beads so that they would easily slip over the sterling wire. To finish the drop style earrings I wrapped 22gauge round copper wire loosely around the gemstones in an orbital pattern tightly wrapping each end of the copper wire around the sterling wire above and below the gemstone beads.

The last tight wrap was a learning experience for me as my copper wire wanted to tighten snugly around the gemstones, this is not what I wanted. I wanted an airy free motion orbital effect in the overall design I found the best way to achieve the space was to slide a spacer object between the beads and copper wrap wire as I was tightening that last wrap. The copper wrapped sterling ear wires turned out to be beautiful and sunlight shines radiantly through the yellow gold of the facet cut Citrine gemstone orbs.

Local Wire Wrapping Jewelry Artists

One local wire wrapping jewelry expert Bobbi Maw of My Wired Imagination a friend and fellow wire jewelry designer teaches classes on Tuesday mornings at Button’s Baubles and Beads my favorite bead and silver wire supply shop. I’ve known Bobbi for almost 2 years and as a talented jewelry artist she’s the one I turn to when I have design questions, she’s always there to help me figure out a connection or a gemstone choice. What I enjoy about her wire wrapped jewelry designs is Bobbi’s skilled use of the gorgeous Swarovski crystals which add a high end sparkling brilliance of luxury gemstones.

There’s another local wire wrapping jewelry artist that I admire for her coil and weaving work in the copper wrapped designs she creates. I enjoy looking at Edi Scheafers copper wire wrapped designs, her wraps are tightly nested next to each other and her coils are nicely spaced.  I respect the advice of these two very talented wire wrapping jewelry artists, they have taught me the importance of making sure my wraps are tight.

Did you enjoy this article, to read more about wire jewelry click here

Wire Sculpture

Wire Sculpture

Wire Sculpture

Wire Jewelry is Wire Sculpture

Creating wire jewelry is undeniably the art of wire sculpture. While it is true that a structural building and typical clay sculpture are in their own rights masterfully created on a much larger scale the art of wire jewelry design employs the same sculptural art principles. As an architectural drafter I believe that the drafting phase of a sculptured wire design is the most important deciding factor in relating the proper scale of the completed piece for the proportion of the sculptural elements you plan to use in your design. And I also believe it doesn’t matter how sophisticated your abilities may be, if you sketch your design on paper or use a computer program when building your vision layer by layer, ultimately the drafting or sketching phase is where you will see every aspect of your design start to fit together perfectly.

Personally I love to sketch my sculptured wire jewelry designs by hand, I think of it as my brainstorm process and quite often it’s where I receive a heightened influx of inspiration and find myself sketching two or three versions of the “master” design. I find inspiration can come from anywhere the colors that pop out at me as I flip through a fashion magazine for current trends, an emotion outwardly expressed on a passing face as I walk down the street, a thought provoking phrase, a childhood memory that comes to mind out of the blue. While not all of the wire sculptured jewelry I create has an inspirational beginning, all will eventually provoke a memory, an emotion, or a visionary dream within the mind of a potential customer.

Let’s look at wire sculpture from a different perspective, the perspective of the emotional bond between the artist and the sculpture, the sculpture and the gallery, and the sculpture and the potential customer. Looking at this from the potential customer’s point of view, what do you see when you look at a sculptured figure created in clay on display at the art gallery? Would you think to look beyond the manipulated clay surface to wonder if the figure is a solid mass or understand that the clay may actually rest on a crudely sculpted wire frame? Do you notice how the artist’s manipulated clay image makes you feel, the emotions it provokes when you stand back to admire it? Do you see each passionate stroke the artist made with his or her bare hands to manipulate and form the lump of potter’s clay into the image their emotions express?  

And what do you notice about a skyscraper with its penetrating architectural form impressing itself against the downtown silhouette? Like the clay sculpted figure, most of us would probably take notice of the outer shell with its gleaming glass walls rising up to the clouds before we acknowledge the internal structure, the wire sculpture web of steel beams. To the architectural designer his steel and glass structure like the clay sculpture is much more than the components that comprise the image we see it is the artistic expression of the inspiration acquired by delving into the personality which the customer’s brand exudes.

Wearable Wire Sculpture

We now can better understand the justified relevance of wire jewelry design as an art form and not just a craft to the professional jewelry designer.

Did you enjoy reading this article, see more wire sculpture articles here: http://designingwsimplicity.blogspot.com/2012/12/for-love-of-handmade.html

A Project for the Cause

Last week I visited England Brothers Park here in Pinellas Park which hosts the local Country in the Park event every Spring. It was a beautiful day for the event, clear sunny skies, a light breeze and plenty of activities and booths to visit. There were booths for community services passing out free gifts and information, food vendors to fill our bellies, rides for the kiddies and craft vendors selling their handmade items.

I was on a fact finding mission to meet local merchants and get information about the local Art Society and opportunities that might be out there I as a handmade jewelry designer could take advantage of. One of the booths I visited was for our local American Cancer Society office here in Pinellas Park and I had the chance to meet Sue one of the directors. I introduced myself and let her know that I am a local handmade jewelry designer interested in donating to their cause. We spoke for a few minutes and I let her know that the American Cancer Society's Relay for Life is a cause that I am familiar with and  have in the past donated one of my designs, a Red Coral and Hematite gemstone necklace to the events auction in Trinity, Florida and would be interested in continuing to donate a design for their annual auction. Sue was happy to see a local designer willing to donate for the cause and accepted my offer, she gave me her business card and told me to call her when I had decided on an item to donate.

Flat Drawn Cable Charm Bracelet

Rolled Cable Charm Bracelet

Well, over the last week I have been thinking about what I wanted to donate. Whether I would give an existing jewelry piece or create a new item especially for this cause and just the other day I finally decided I would create a cause specific design. I've been creating copper charm bracelets for a few months and thought it would be a wonderful idea to create one especially for the Relay for Life Campaign with its purple and red colors, but I'm adding a special twist to my original drawn cable chain design. I've not created a charm bracelet with twisted wire yet and I though this would be the perfect time to add this feature as well as ending it with a hand crafted toggle clasp as well. I've gotten started on creating the special piece by hand twisting the 22guage copper wire myself,

Hand twisting 22guage copper wire

Whenever possible I like to use findings I can create myself like ear wires, ball pins, jump rings and hoop earring forms. I could have purchased this twisted wire material already made but I like to use handmade elements in my designs that I can make myself I feel it adds handmade authenticity to the Simply Katie's SK Wire Jewelry brand of handmade beaded gemstone & wire jewelry. All the copper charm bracelets I've made so far are created entirely by hand with the exception of the toggles, charms & beads but if I'm successful with creating a toggle for this project I'll add these to my findings supplies as well.

Open Handmade Jump Rings

Soldered Handmade Jump Rings

2013 ACS Relay for Life Bracelet in Progress

Sometimes things happen when you're working on a project, I just happen to find that I did not twist enough wire to create enough rings to complete a 7 inch length of chain. Back to the spool I went and cut another 4 foot length of wire to twist which when I was done with the twisting yielded me approximately 20 1/2 inches of additional wire and that's more than enough tho complete the chain portion of the project. I'll create the toggle with hand twisted 20guage or untwisted 12guage round copper wire for strength and use 22guage handmade copper ball pins to add purple and red beads with small white pearls to accent them and finish the piece with a "Life" word charm also of twisted copper wire. When it's finally done I'll give my hands a few days rest (haha), twisting wire by hand is not an easy task but in the end it's a project I'm proud of.

I'm enjoying creating this special Relay for Life Campaign charm bracelet for the American Cancer Society. It's been a special cause for me for a long time as is Hospice because of my mother who started me beading and is the inspiration for Simply Katie's SK Wire Jewelry. My mother fought cancer twice in her life and finally lost her struggle in the Summer of 2011, God rest her soul. I know it's for a great cause and Sue will have a smile on her face when she come's to pick up the completed "Life" bracelet.