Techniques in Jewelry

Etching is where you put either acid resistant stickers, pens or paint and then on the paint scratch out a patten like these of mine 

After you put tape on the back so the acid doesn't attack all the copper and then put it in acid like these. 

After take the stickers off or the paint with   Paint remover, and it leaves the bits whicj where covered more shiny.

Embossing 

Embossing is when you aneal (heat up) your copper ect and them cool in cold water which makes it more Malable and then you put it through a roller which something on too for example cotton or sandpaper which u can cut into any shape and then place it on top of the copper and when put through the roller it imprints a patten I did the letter L for my initial like this 

After you put it in acid it makes the patten show up more this was mine which didn't work well the first time because the roller wasn't tight enough.

but then I did it with circles and it came out like this and then I added a stain to make it stand out more.

Percing out 

Percing out is when you get a peice of copper or brass, and then take a quite simple pattern and trace it onto tracing paper. After spray, spray mount onto the copper and stick the tracing paper to the copper. If the pattern needs to be cut from the middle then make 1 punch hole into the copper which is what I used and the put your piercing saw blade through the hole then rest on the wooded pegs and start cutting out your patten. However my patten didn't need cutting out so I drew my patten which was this 

And then I stuck it to my copper and starting sawing this was after 1 lesson 

By the next lesson I had finished and smoothed the sides with a rounded files because of the curves in my patten this was my finished sample. 

I like the pattern and that even though it's a simple pattern it's still quite fancy. If I was to do it again I would try and make the side more smooth so I wouldn't have to file as much.

Next we learnt how to solder, I had to do three different types of solder one was to join two small peices of copper which I had cut with the guillotine. Then sand paper the sides that where going to be soldered together, and then cut two tiny peices of silver with the tin snips and put them on the edge of the copper and add flux. After I lit the blow torch and melted the solder. This was the sample and I managed to do it the first time. 

The second one was to solder a peice of wire to one side of the copper which has been sandpapered. First you cut a peice of wire and curl it with pliers, then add flux to where the end of the copper and wire join and then put your two small peices of silver on the edge and light with the blowtorch.

This was my first attempt and it worked 

The solder we had to do was to join a peice of wire stood up on the copper so I had to cut the wire and file it, then add a tiny peice of solder to the copper. After hold the wire with tweezers and the blow torch with the other hand and melt the solder and the wire together so it will stand up this was my attempt which took me 3 times because i didn't let the solder melt enough. 

We then had ago at imprinting or Hallmarking into metal with letters which you hit with a Nilon hammer so the metal doesn't get marked. 

I took one of the words from my mood board and printed them on the copper the letters weren't completly streight but it was only my first attempt this was my sample.