Brass Box Pictorial

Here are the pictures I took as I was making my little round Brass Box.
This isn't a tutorial (I wouldn't presume to try and tell anyone how to do this - I barely managed it myself !) It's more of a pictorial to show you my process - It was my first attempt to make a box and I'd be more than happy to hear suggestions if you know of a better or easier way to make these :)

I started with 1mm sheet brass which I formed and soldered into a 3cm diameter tube about 2 cm high....then:

I carefully sawed around the mark I had made with the calipers.

Yay! Two pieces - a lid and a base

Sand on flat surface in figure 8 action. I do this as required.

I used  a cardboard template and made an extended lining to fit lid .

Lining Soldered in - now checking for fit to the base.

Working on the Base now - Bottom soldered on.

Sawing off the excess

Shoddy Sawing! Lucky I enjoy filing :) Tweak the lid to fit!

That looks better - after filing & some sanding.

Aaargh! Never noticed that before - back to re solder that bit!

Working on the lid now- soldering the top on.

After sawing. You knew I'd textured the lid in the rolling mill, right?

Ready for more and more filing fun....and some sanding.

More clean up ...then.......All done - Here 'Tis

The Lid comes off...but it fits back on....phew - wipes brow! :)

Yep - I even cleaned up the inside.

This is just a brief summary but if you have a any questions just leave a comment and I'll be happy to give more details if I can. Pin It

Rain drop Pendant

I've entered my latest creation in an online exhibition which will be hosted on the ganoksin Orchid forum. The pieces must be made with non precious metals, so that suited me as I've been making my hollow form pieces in Brass.
The exhibition's not juried, so I know my piece will make the cut, what's tricky is the photo - it must be of "jury quality"
Here's the picture I've submitted.

Hopefully it meets the standard required. Photographing jewellery is quite painful for me, anything polished has reflection - usually reflecting features I don't want included, like my hand or what I'm wearing (the pink pyjama syndrome) Aargh! then there's the "evil" white balance that makes the purest snow driven whites a dirty blue gray tone despite my hours messing around with my camera settings.
That's why I shot my pic on a gray background this time - I decided to save my self the white balance angst :)

There are numerous online articles showing how to make light boxes and to take great photos of jewellery, maybe I'll check out the resources and have a go at making a light box.

Update: Got the news that my photo was Ok and up to standard - Yay! Pin It

Hollow form Fun.

I ordered some1 mm brass sheet so I could try out some more hollow form shapes, similar to my week 4 efforts. It arrived this week.
Couldn't wait to get started on Wednesday. Pretty much the wall is constructed first then it is soldered to a slightly larger textured bottom plate. Then the excess is sawn and filed off, so the join doesn't show.
There must be a hole in it somewhere before the top plate is soldered on to allow the heat and gases to escape and avoid a hot metal explosion! So I measured out and drilled my holes for the chain at this point then soldered on the top. After more sawing, filing and sanding and it was all finished! Easy peasy :) Well, it's sounds easy but in real life it took me the best part of the day to do! Hopefully after I've done a few more of these I'll get my production time down a bit!

I'm loving the texture too. It's from a fibrous scrapbooking paper. Reminds me of Leather ;) Pin It