silver techniques | Eileen Moylan

Making Silver Earrings

04.20.2012 by Eileen Moylan //

Today I’ve been working on a pair of silver hoop style earrings. I could lie and say they are for a customer but the truth is I’ve decided to give myself a little Friday treat! This isn’t a regular occurrence…honestly!

I begin this job just like I would for any customer with sketching. I had a few ideas of what I wanted but there’s nothing like seeing it on paper to help me make my mind up.

I’ve decided to go with the middle design and alter the curve as I’m making them if necessary.

I begin by getting the silver wire the correct thickness. This just requires a few runs through my roller.

Then I cut the lengths of wire and begin curving. I have my lovely glittery pink half round pliers for this job. I usually wouldn’t use a pliers for this job but the silver has been well annealed this pliers has extra special soft curves so it won’t mark my pretty earrings.

Then I need to decide how much of a curve I want before I begin soldering. I just tape the wires together and see what looks best on me!

Once I’ve decided on the depth of the curve I can start soldering the wires together.

Well I had better get back to ‘real’ customers jobs…will post the finished product next week.

Have a good weekend.

Photos from the Workshop

03.20.2012 by Eileen Moylan //

You might have notice I took last week off from the blog. It wasn’t an intentional break, it was just that the making side of the business took over! There were lots of lovely jobs coming in to the workshop but here are some photos of just one to better explain my absence.

I’ll post photos of the finished product soon…

Synclastic and Anticlastic Forming

08.05.2011 by Eileen Moylan //

This is part two in a series on the synclastic and anticlastic Forming class I attended in Birmingham. To read part one click here.

The first two days were spent familiarizing ourselves with synclastic and anticlastic forming. At this stage we were all well settled into the workshop and were making use of our week in the jewellery quarter. It was brilliant to be in the middle of all the jewellery tool shops. Most of my lunchtimes were spent going from shop to shop buying tools. Which I happily dragged home in my bulging suitcase.

So on day three once we got the hang of synclast and anticlast forming we moved on to spiculums. A spiculum is made from a single piece of sheet metal which is formed into a tapering tube. This process involves hammering the metal until it rolls into itself forming a long hollow tube.

Once they had been hammered into a straight tube and soldered closed we were able to curve them. I found curving them the most stressful part of the whole exercise. You have to take this hollow tube that you’ve toiled over and gingerly bend it with your hands. It has too be well softened by annealing before you start. Once you feel you have curved it as much as possible before it buckles you anneal again. You continue like this until you get the curve you require. I decided to quit while I was ahead and opted for a gentle curve!

We also made open seam spiculums, which look very similar to the closed spiculums but are not soldered. These are made using techniques similar to anticlastic ribbons. We also got a chance to make a double helix, the same process used in Bronze Age Torcs.

We packed so much into the five days, I hadn’t expected to learn as much and be able to explore each technique. Cynthia was a great teacher, everything was brilliantly demonstrated and she patiently answered all our questions. She also brought along lots of her own tools for us to use. One hammer in particular I fell in love with (I know, I hear how sad that sounds!) so I’ve added that to my wishlist of tools. Having five days to refine my hammering skills was such a luxury and will definitely influence my future work.