Wire Review: Diamond Cut Sterling Silver Wire From Rio Grande

While perusing Rio Grande recently, I ran across this: Diamond cut, faceted sterling silver wire. I grabbed some so fast, you would have thought it was chocolate! I got the 20g to try.

As you may know, I don't use a lot of twisted square wire in my work. I find it to be overwhelming on a majority of pieces. I was hoping this wire would have a more subtle effect and it does.

Lets take a look at it:

20g faceted diamond cut sterling silver wire

Compared to smooth square wire:

diamond cut, faceted sterling silver round wire compared to smooth wire

and.... compared to square twisted wire:

As you can see, this wire is radically different. I was sold on the looks, I wondered how it would work.

I chose a beautiful bustamite pendant to work with because I believe this wire is best just for accent and that was all I wanted for this stone.

My impressions:

The wire looks very rough. It is actually surprisingly soft. It is not smooth, mind you, but I don't think it would cause a lot of problems to wear. 

I thought the wire would be much more hard or stiff. It is not. Despite what Rio Grande says on the website, "to avoid annealing, use only after soldering" this is very soft wire. In fact, the lack of harness is a bit of an issue for me. It doesn't want to hold it's shape well. You have very few options to harden it, as well. You can't hammer or twist it and running it through a cloth tears up your cloth.

The look is quite nice. It has a bright but not garish twinkle. It is almost subtle. I can see using this for accent to great effect.

The gauge seems smaller than 20g. That is because the surface is textured leaving a slightly smaller solid diameter. It did bundle very well with 20g round, though. But, because the core is smaller, it is less strong. I wouldn't use the 20g for earring drops, as an example. I think it would be fine for small components which will be work hardened, but for larger components, I don't think it is strong or hard enough. However, as I found out, a single wire in a bundle works very well. One just has to remember to work harden the angles a bit. I think this would be very nice to add to a wire sculptured piece- better than twisted square even. The cost may make that unacceptable, though.

Overall, I have to say that I like the wire. For what I would use it for, that is, accent in a bundle for a pendant, it is perfectly acceptable and fairly easy to use. However, because of the softness, I think it has its limits.

I haven't given it a patina. I'm not sure that I want to. I will try it at some point when I think it might be called for and let you know what I think.

I tumbled this piece for an hour. It tumbles fine and I think I could have tumbled much longer. 

Thanks for reading :) I hope this was helpful and that you decide to try this new wire. I may get some more to do a wire sculpted piece. I haven't done one in awhile.

A Ghost in the Stone

I finished this yesterday and had to share it. It is a Chinese Paintbrush or Nature's Paintbrush cabochon.

Nature's Paintbrush aka Chinese Paintbrush

When I first laid eyes on this, I had to have it. It so vividly reminds me of an old picture of a great, great Aunt. In the old sepia photo, she is holding her arms out with a huge lobster dangling from her hand. I have tried to find the photo and now that I want it, I can't. Rest assured, the image is almost dead on- except there is no rock lobster. :)

I love picture stones and I'm always looking for good ones. The cool thing about them is that everyone sees their own pictures. An image which seems crystal clear to one viewer, may be vague or something else completely to another viewer. This stone, the one with the ghost or apparition, is no different. I am really curious as to what others might see. Let me know in the comments.

Close up of what I see in the stone.

Thanks for reading and for your comments. :)

Working for the Man

I've been busy. I've been doing lots of custom work for men. If I'm not doing custom work for men, then men are buying from my Etsy shop. For anyone familiar with my style, it may come as no surprise that my work appeals to men. I tend to stray away from curls and feminine embellishment. Yes, I will say it again:  It's all about the rocks. (I run into more rockhounds doing this work!) 

Rare Blue Green Ammolite

I've been thinking about this trend of selling to men. I remember on a few discussions boards, questions would frequently come up addressing the issue of men and jewelry. Us women, because it was invariably us mystified and clueless women who would be wondering, rambled on with ideas and thoughts about what men really liked. Rarely did a man ever chime in. I don't think any one of us really had any good understanding of the subject. And, of course, it isn't fair to generalize, but we must. We can't cater to every desire. We have to aim for some middle ground.

Kambaba Jasper with Beaded Frame Wrap sans beads

Here are a few thoughts that I have on the subject of men and jewelry. (I can only speak about pendants here.) I think men appreciate strong design. That is, a design that speaks visually to a determined mind. They don't seem to care for ambiguity. They want a design to work in concert with the stone. The design has to be seen as an extension of the stone, not an embellishment to the stone. I think they want stones that make a strong statement, too. All of my men clients have chosen unique or rare over pretty or even masculine. They chose statement stones, stones which stand out as examples of their breed, or stones which represent something about themselves. The stones on their own make the statement. The jewelry is just a way to unobtrusively present the rock in a straight forward way.

Lapis

If I am explaining myself well, then it's easy to see why I sell a lot of pendants to men. My style has always respected the rocks. I guess, I have a masculine aesthetic. I see a lot of jewelry that incorporates a lot of fancy wire work. I have some favorite artists for that style, too. I do enjoy it a lot. I'm a girl, so frilly is sometimes exactly what I want. But, for some reason, that's not where my mind goes to when working for myself. Try as I may, I have no imagination for more feminine work. I think it goes back to my affinity for Art Deco and clean lines and, of course, my love of the lapidary arts.

Rare Australian Print Stone

I'll keep doing what I love to do and I'll keep making jewelry that men tend to like. It's a good place to be- working for the man. :)

Cherry Creek Jasper with a decidedly masculine look

Thanks for reading, as always. :)

Lots of Rocks

During my recent family crisis, I found that the best thing to do was to cab to keep my mind off things. I found it very hard to concentrate on wrapping. I did do a few wraps, but not many. I have done so many cabs that I have lost track of them- literally. LOL!

I got on a kick with Graveyard Point Plume Agate (GYP) because of the variety of looks that I got from all the different rough I had gotten.  Some of it is full of marcasite with a real metallic look, some is real plumey and some has a little of everything. I had a few that had black dendrites, or at least that's what it looked like. They had a Montana agate look to them.

I put together a slide show of some stones. Then, I decided it was too long. So, I tried to put together a simple table for adding the pictures to Blogger, but Blogger did not play nice, at all! I guess, it's back to old fashioned scrolling. :(

Australian Print Stone- Rare and beautiful with a matte polish

GYP ring stone

Very rare Forest Fire Agate

Plumey GYP

Ocean Jasper

Scenic GYP much nicer in person with a lot of depth

Fuschite full of Ruby- this is the best one that I've done. It's very difficult to cab.

Very nice plumes in GYP

Sonora Chrysocolla

More GYP

"Bad Moon Rising" Montana Agate- Very cool stone!

"Heavy Metal" GYP

Flame agate

Almost mossy GYP

More colorful GYP

Sonora Sunrise Freeform

I'm sure there are lots more that I left out, but like I said- I've lost track of what I've done. 2 are sold already for custom pendants and several are for sale- or will be- in my Etsy shop. There's also some there that you may not have seen, including one some of you might remember from before I recabbed it. It had been in a very popular wrap that I cut up. I don't know why I cut it off, but I did.

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My grandson ended up with a long term suspension. He was very impressive at the hearing and made us all proud. I think he represented himself very well. :)

My nephew is now home and continuing outpatient chemo. He has been doing very well with it. He can return to light duty at work. :) That's really incredible news. He just can't be stopped.

Thanks for following along and for your comments. Things have calmed down here and life is back to semi normal, I'll have more time for the blog ... and more time to wrap.

The Earrings That Can Not Be Lost or Destroyed

Before I get to the magical earrings, I have something fabulous to report. I sold a really pretty stone to a woman who is using it to make a headdress with matching jewelry and clothes. Want to see some gasp worthy, drool inducing awesomeness?  Check out her creations at RoosterBaby. This woman is extraordinarily talented! She will send me a picture when she is done and I will post it here. I can't wait to see it! Did you check out the link, yet? Doesn't it make you want to go to a fantastical masquerade ball? To me, her works remind me of the fantasy/sci fi movie Labyrinth. What an honor it is to have one of my stones used in such a beautiful way.

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The Earrings That Can Not Be Lost or Destroyed

In the comments to my blog post over a year ago, I mentioned to Christine that I had finally given my grand daughter a pair of earrings that I had been holding onto for her.  I don't even remember when I made them... it was a quite a few years ago.

The earrings are tiny little hearts adorned with 6x4mm pink tourmalines. They became an instant hit. I had been holding off giving them to her because she was bad at taking care of earrings. She had a jewelry box drawer full of single, lonely earrings. But, she was 11 then and I thought it was time she tried to care for some nicer earrings. She gave it the old college try. Considering that she wore them almost every day, she didn't do too bad.

At first, she just left them laying where ever she took them off. She got tired of hearing me nag and soon she was better at putting them away.

One day, while outside playing, she took them off and lay them down some where. I'm not sure where she put them, but they weren't there when she went back for them. They sat in the grass for at least a week before they were found again- none the worse for wear.

I lost track of how many times she came to me in a panic thinking that were lost and gone for good. Usually, they turned up on Sunday when she had to clean her room. :)

Not once, but twice they went through being washed in my heavy duty washer. I pulled out the wet clothes and got the dryer ready to go when I noticed that the earrings in the bottom of the washer, with the earwires securely attached to the tub. I had to pull the earwires straight to get them out of the holes. Afterwards, they were in perfect (clean) condition except for the earwires, which I just reformed.

On day, in the lockeroom at PE, she left them hanging outside her locked locker. She came home and told me, broken hearted. Surely, someone would find them and keep them. The next day, she went to PE, there they were still hanging there. I don't know who was more shocked, she or I. I know she came home from school grinning from ear to ear.

Then, the last time the earrings had an adventure without her, we thought for sure they were gone. She took them off during her English class and they got knocked to the floor and forgotten. She looked everywhere and even went to lost and found to no avail. We had given up on them entirely. Then one day about a week later she came home with them on and had a story to tell. She and her friend were sitting in English class and her friend looked down to see a gold and pink earring laying on the floor. She pointed them out to my grand daughter who squealed, "My earrings!!!" I wouldn't believe this unless I knew it were true. I mean, don't they have a janitor???

Each time they went missing, they came back in perfect condition. Each time they went through a full load of laundry, the stones stayed in. I straightened the earwires twice, but other than that, they look like they did the day I made them. The gold filled wire still looks good, too. Which considering the abuse these things have taken is a miracle in itself. I remember when I made these, in my preoptivisor days, I worried that the stones might not be held securely enough. I needn't have worried. Maybe, I should let her "test" all my new designs. LOL!

My grand daughter is now convinced that she can not lose these earrings. They remain her favorite pair.

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Update:  My nephew is doing very well on chemo. The docs say that he is the classic example of how things should go for the best outcome.

We had a hearing with the school board and wait for an answer to my grand son's problems. I'll keep you updated.

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My muse has been severely affected by everything going on, but I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. I have made a few things and cabbed a few stones, but my heart hasn't been in it. I think it shows and then I beat myself up. We are all our own worst critics. I have some new ideas to work on as soon as the fog clears out.

So, that's it for now. Things are looking up and I thank you all for your support. :)

Life is Life

Life isn't all jewelry. Wish that it were, but it isn't, no matter how much I want it to be. My family has been afflicted with two tragedies. One much more serious than other.

I debated on whether or not to write this and decided it would make me feel better to do it, so here it is. My 30 year old nephew was just diagnosed with T cell lymphoblastic leukemia.

Let me tell you about my nephew, my one and only nephew. I'll call him Jim. Jim is a mountain of a man. Jim lives life large and in charge. Jim is a Southern boy by both birth and choice. He is the world's friendliest biker, gregarious to a fault. He's the guy who would give you the shirt off his back. He's a computer geek, a Industrial music DJ, a lover of all music, a jack of all trades. Jim is a father of two small children and a devoted, providing husband. Last but not least, he's a guy who was born to kick cancer's ass. If anyone can do this, he can.

But, it is up to the people who love him, to worry over him, nonetheless. I have absolute faith that he will get through the long ordeal in front of him, but it doesn't make it any easier for those just wishing that it hadn't happened. Needless to say, I'm sick with worry and in dread of the possibilities, which care not for what I wish. As bad as I feel, I can't even imagine what it must be like for his mother right now.

I can't say more about Jim without crying, so let me tell you about my oldest grandson. As some of you might remember, my grandkids were raised in a very small town. Moving here was a culture shock, but they have adjusted pretty well. My grandson, whom I'll call Shawn, is brilliant, but he doesn't have a lot of common sense. He doesn't know how the world is shaping up around us. As a 12 year old who has been called ADD, he doesn't think much about the future or consequences.

Shawn found a penknife in the mud one day. It was rusted and corroded shut. Like any boy, he stuck it in his pocket. Like Shawn, however, he decided, after he realized that he still had it, that it would be a good idea to try to wash it off and open it during his free class. Of course, someone told a teacher. As we are all adults here, I imagine you just did what I did, release a slow, "Oh, no." We know how serious this is especially after Sandy Hook.

Jim has been expelled and forever banned from his school. Which means the only school which will now take him, despite his brilliance and his being a good kid in other respects, is the "delinquent" school. He never opened the knife, he never threatened anyone, the police were not involved and the blade was too small to even be considered a legal weapon. Zero tolerance. His future has been severely and negatively affected. It hasn't sunk in to him, yet. This just happened the other day. It is only the beginning of this ordeal.

Just so you know that not everything is bad news, my grandaughter is doing incredibly awesome. :) She goes out for all the teams at school and competes with other schools in the district. The latest was her forensics team, which is actually acting. I was welling up in tears watching this, formerly shy, young girl act in front of all those people. And, she was really great, too! My youngest grandson, who is in the gifted program, just won a medal at school for a science tournament. As he likes to point out, he didn't even study. :)

So... life is life. You have your ups and have your downs.

I hope I didn't bum anyone out, but as I've said before- This is my journal and my own little piece of the web. I needed to vent. These things actually have everything to do with jewelry, too, since it has been so distracting for me and limiting my ability to work.

Thanks, as always, for reading. :)

Phosphor Bronze Wire Versus Copper Wire

Copper wire on a spool and coiled phosphor bronze wire

Sure, I'm a little late to the party, but better late than never. I have been meaning to try phosphor bronze wire for a very long time. Truth be told, I was waiting for my favorite source, fellow wire artist, Nancy Wickman, of Wickwire Jewelry, to develop 1/2 round. But, she's had trouble making it herself, so I decided to just go ahead and try it anyway. I got some 1/2 round from Wire-Sculpture.com. It is called bronze. I do no know if it is true phosphor bronze. It looks the same and patinas the same, though.

Let's take a look at what true phosphor bronze is. True phosphor bronze is a mix of copper and tin. A lot of what is called bronze is actually a mix of copper and zinc and is more accurately called brass. This is a crucial difference in health matters. Zinc is very toxic when worked with a flame. Tin isn't.

I got my usual 20g RS and some 26g RS for weaving from Nancy. I got 20 and 21 HR HH from Wire-Sculpture. Both were shipped quickly, packed well and coiled with no waste.

First, let me tell you, phosphor bronze wire has a wonderful feel to it. It feels smooth and somehow slippery, although the wire isn't coated. I want to say buttery, but that's how it looks, too. Where copper is reddish, the bronze is a buttery, rose goldish. It really is very pretty with a light glow and is subtly different from copper. The wire, which mine is dead soft, is actually soft like silver, not soft like copper. I like the workability a lot. It reminds me of my soft copper after being twisted- not quite half hard. It takes a shape well and handles very, very well.

Back track:  What got me started on this adventure was the cab set I recently finished. It is what I thought was bronzite, but is actually Golden Amphibolite from Australia. I posted pictures of it on my rock board and a fellow rock hound from Australia told me that it is Golden Amphibolite, which is more rare and beautiful than bronzite. Most Americans don't know what it is, so it is often misnamed the more common bronzite.  The cabs I have have 3 distinct layers, a bronze layer on top with what looks like metal flake and a clear layer under it, with the bottom layer being more bronze mossy looking material. I tried to capture it in these pictures.

Golden Amphibolite

Golden Amphibolite

Golden Amphibolite

I thought the best choice for these was bronze and that's what finally convinced me to try it. So, wasting little time, I finished up an earring with copper and one with bronze. Let's see if the pictures can pick up the differences.

Notice the bronze on the right has a more vintage and less red look?

The difference is easy to see here. The golden bronze is on the left.

I hope you clicked to blow up the pictures. The copper is obviously more red. These pieces have been tumbled and are clean. The copper just seems so red in comparison to the vintage gold look of the bronze.

Let's look at the patina. I gave the bronze a patina with LOS in the exact way I would for copper. There were no differences in how they take a patina.

Finished pendant with patina.

The patina compared to the raw wire.

Do you see how the patina has a vintage look? It is less dark and rosy than copper and more antique looking.

Let's compare bronze patina with copper patina:

Bronze on the right, copper on the left

I think these pictures give you a better idea of what I mean. The bronze is a more neutral, antiqued tone.

Next, I tried to put a bead on a wire. I got out my small butane torch and a 20 gauge wire. It beaded up nicely and was easy to clean. The ball itself had less of the raisin or prune look that copper can get. I don't use flux when I bead a copper or bronze wire. If I did, then maybe it wouldn't pucker- I don't know.

Bronze headpin

I haven't had the time to see how it ages. I guess you'll have to wait a while for that show and tell. :)

I'll just wrap up by saying that I really love this wire and I believe it has a place on my shelf. I like the workability and the color. But, I especially like the more neutral, vintage looking patina. I can see it being the perfect match for some stones where the red in the copper might clash or overpower the color of the stone.  

Golden Amphibolite earrings in bronze wire with patina

Thanks for reading :) If you haven't tried phosphor bronze wire, yet, I hope you'll give it a try.