A friend of mine asked me to make some earrings to go with a pendant I gave her for Christmas, so we sat in the workshop for a couple of hours and worked through the design and materials. It was fun and it wasn’t just the glasses of wine we had!
Small hoops about 3/4 of an inch in diameter made from 14 gauge wire. The pearls fit over, but obviously won’t be held in place if I left them like this. So after some consideration I decided to go with just hammered ends –
Believe it or not, this is the first pair of hoops I’ve ever made with soldered posts. They are a bit organic and I really need to refine the technique, but they came out pretty well. As sometimes happens, the first one went together perfectly, but the second needed 3 tries to get that post on. I just couldn’t see that the connection between the two pieces wasn’t tight enough. Need to use the loupe!
But when i was done polishing, one of the pearls wouldn’t stay on either earring. I removed just a bit too much metal and the friction got reduced by the polishing, too. The holes in the pearls are of different sizes and so one was bigger and posed a problem.
So I made another pair. This first one will become mine and not end up in the shop. The posts just aren’t work hardened enough even after a few hours in the tumbler. All good things to learn though. Post earrings go through a lot of wear and tear just by taking them on and off – that little earring back action. So in addition to having a really good solder joint, the wire itself needs to be stiff and not bendy. I should have twisted it a little more than I did, so with this next pair I will get that right. The pearls come off over the post and she can wear them with or without.
So that’s them and I quite like how they turned out. I hope my friend does, too.
Here’s a real photo taken with the good camera –
These are potato pearls so have funky shapes and ridges. It’s the nature of the style.
twsjewelry.com 