It’s the first piece I’ve finished that actually LOOKS like proper jewelry someone would buy. It looks worn because it is, I haven’t taken it off since I finished it yesterday hahah

It started life as 5 pennies. I like the permanence of overbuilt things, so the shank is staying too thick. The alexanderite is synthetic, and honestly a pretty sub-par cut. But it wouldn’t have fit in the head if it wasn’t abnormally shallow, so I can’t really complain.

  • @[email protected]
    2•1 year ago

    Ahh, I figured. Modern ones melt funny with all that zinc.

    I have heard of putting a layer of clear nail polish on the surfaces that touch the fingers to counter the staining. Never tried it myself though. At the time we had silver to work with, so I used that after practicing with copper and brass.

    Cool stuff! The stone setting looks great!

    Do you do any lost wax casting?

    • @[email protected]OP
      4•1 year ago

      Funnily enough we have all the equipment for in house lost wax casting, including a homemade centrifuge (housed in a trashcan), and the ONE thing keeping that off the table currently is the fancy industrial furnace and it’s cheap, faulty thermostat. It’s one of the newest machines in the store and simultaneously the least functional.

      We’ve got an engraver from the 40s, hand tools from the 30s, and a ring bender that I can’t get a date on, but it’s at least 100 years old. We’ve got jury-rigged setups that have outlived the man who hastily constructed them, meanwhile the BRAND NEW, PRODUCTION FURNACE is inoperable.

      /rant lmao