Part of making jewelry is buying the components at a good price. I have discovered a good source for acquiring lots of parts is Ebay. More stuff than you will ever need. Everything in this shot is from sellers there. The first three rings on the left are from Hong Kong....sterling with fake stones.I paid .99 for each with $4 shipping for the 3.I will pull the cheap stones and under neath is a good shank that can be used..even the mounting can be modified to work in a custom made piece. Going around the top row in this picture we have some sterling mountings from jamminggems on ebay $11-18 each and they are prepared with proper easy to mount prongs already notched. The stones are real, quartz, peridot, and citrine. They come from Thailand and cost on average $5 The cutting is perfect..buying smart I get these at the price of glass and they drop right into the pre-notched mounts. The bottom pieces are today's project.
A rectangular druzy and a bit of gallery wire already bent around the stone and a sterling band are ready to become a ring. But first we need to measure and transfer the size to the sheet metal for the base. Instead of measuring and marking or tracing around like I showed last time I wanted to show you the right way. Using a pair of dividers from the hardware store we can accurately measure and mark all at once and do it perfectly.
Dividers are like a compass with two points. These are machinists dividers. Place them across the length careful to leave a tiny gap between the wire bezel and the point.
Place the dividers on the metal and pull across with one point over the edge of the metal.
This leaves a perfectly parallel scratch the length of the bezel.
Do the same with the width.
Now we have a squared up rectangle ready to be cut out.
Put the stone into the bezel and place it onto the sheet. If it matches(and it will) cut out the piece of sheet stock with your jewelers saw.
Some folks will try to tell you the saw is slow, but its very accurate if used correctly. We have made the base plate for the ring sized correctly with very little to file off and never used a ruler. Simple and accurate. The divider is your friend.And they are inexpensive. Here is a link to some that are similar to the ones I used here and they sell for less than $6
http://www.jewelrytools.com/eurotool/jewelry-dividers/Divider-3-Inches.html
This is the finished ring.Next time we will explore those HK mounts and make another drusy mount to fit.
Part of making jewelry is buying the components at a good price. I have discovered a good source for acquiring lots of parts is Ebay. More stuff than you will ever need. Everything in this shot is from sellers there. The first three rings on the left are from Hong Kong....sterling with fake stones.I paid .99 for each with $4 shipping for the 3.I will pull the cheap stones and under neath is a good shank that can be used..even the mounting can be modified to work in a custom made piece. Going around the top row in this picture we have some sterling mountings from jamminggems on ebay $11-18 each and they are prepared with proper easy to mount prongs already notched. The stones are real, quartz, peridot, and citrine. They come from Thailand and cost on average $5 The cutting is perfect..buying smart I get these at the price of glass and they drop right into the pre-notched mounts. The bottom pieces are today's project. 
A rectangular druzy and a bit of gallery wire already bent around the stone and a sterling band are ready to become a ring. But first we need to measure and transfer the size to the sheet metal for the base. Instead of measuring and marking or tracing around like I showed last time I wanted to show you the right way. Using a pair of dividers from the hardware store we can accurately measure and mark all at once and do it perfectly.
Dividers are like a compass with two points. These are machinists dividers. Place them across the length careful to leave a tiny gap between the wire bezel and the point.
Place the dividers on the metal and pull across with one point over the edge of the metal.
This leaves a perfectly parallel scratch the length of the bezel.
Do the same with the width.
Now we have a squared up rectangle ready to be cut out.
Put the stone into the bezel and place it onto the sheet. If it matches(and it will) cut out the piece of sheet stock with your jewelers saw.
Some folks will try to tell you the saw is slow, but its very accurate if used correctly. We have made the base plate for the ring sized correctly with very little to file off and never used a ruler. Simple and accurate. The divider is your friend.And they are inexpensive. Here is a link to some that are similar to the ones I used here and they sell for less than $6 http://www.jewelrytools.com/eurotool/jewelry-dividers/Divider-3-Inches.html
This is the finished ring.Next time we will explore those HK mounts and make another drusy mount to fit.
Wow, really cool. Thanks for all the valuable tips.
ReplyDeleteSonya
HEllo: Thank you for sharing your workspace and blog with us. I love all your creativity it is fabtabulous...Your Jewelry is gorgeous...
ReplyDelete