Underwater Marvels Propel My Art
In order to finish my piranha and woodpecker wire sculptures, I need to modify some pliers so they don’t scratch up the steel wire.
Pliers before modification
Pliers after the teeth were filed off the inside the the jaws.
And, while I’m taking pictures of tools, here’s a look at my chasing and repousse’ tools in process
Three rings set with three different stone setting techniques: flush, channel, and prong.
The steel part was made from a spent flex shaft mandrel. The business end of the steel is the part closest to the handle. Below is the tool put together.
The first ring with flush set stones was made by carving wax into the shape of an ocean tumbled glass bottleneck. The lost wax casting process produced a sterling silver ring which I molded. The original ring was set with stones as seen below.
After making more wax bottleneck rings with the mold, I modified the waxes to produce a ring to which I could add a prong setting. The first ‘real’ prong setting project for me was this peridot.
The channel set ring below was created from the same bottleneck mold; this time I cut the wax in half before casting the piece in sterling. The aquamarines are set on 2/3rds of the ring.
By creating an organic shape for the channel I made the work challenging for myself. 🙂
This!
