My general day to day production of jewellery,gemstones and jewellery related things.

This is an 18ct ring set with a blue tourmaline and two diamonds.

With an African flavour.

The Dino War Machine continues with breathtaking pace. This is my latest Steam punk project.

Don’t kid yourself, it might be looking like a headless chicken right now, but just wait.

This is only the chassis.

Check those evil feet out.

The red stuff is just the iron plating out on the brass when it is quenched in an acid solution after soldering. I can get rid of it by adding hydrogen peroxide to my acid, which consists of sodium-bi sulfate but it makes the brass all crishy and I don’t like that.

It is a mission to polish then and I will remove this at a later stage of manufacture mechanically.

All the guns and plasma cannons and phase disrupting devices will be added after the head and tail are manufactured.

The sides are going to have glass port holes and the inside will have lights inside.

The back is going to have energy conducting spines.

And a phased array of syncro conducing replicators.

These are the power generators of this machine, once it is finished being crafted by my hands and I declare it fully born and released to this world.

It goes without saying that it will protect the world from death and destruction.

Coming to a computer near you soon.

This was how the baby started to be born.

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Sunset from the top of my shop building.

Nice one.

I have to fix a few thing around the shop.

And I am not talking about jewellery.
My sign was one. It was dying and looking tatty.

Taken off, and a major grill (shiver) mission, believe me…..

Rotten wood and all.

I had made it out of resin and plastic and wood.

And so here I am re-resin-ing and re painting the letters.

In fact, I have been doing this for a good while.

I figured it would only last about two years in this hostile environment here at the coast.
So I got 4 and a half years out of it. Not bad.
But the wood is all rotten and soft, so it was a real nausea to take off.
I hate the feel of rotten wood. like a hard shell on the outside and soft inside.
It’s like if you walking in the woods and you stand on a log and your foot goes right through it .
And you foot hits mush, and all creepies crawl out.
Cockroaches and earwigs.

Believe me, I have kept spiders and scorpions and snakes for pets all my life.
Ok, maybe not snakes anymore, because Anne is shit scared of them.
But for me to catch and pickup a snake is no problem. Or a scorpion, or a spider.

But cockroaches just do me in.

I hate the ’snap’ sound they make when you stand on them.

So I don’t anymore.
There is not one fracking cockroach in my workshop.
I layed down a Napalm Radioactive Layer of poison down when I moved in and that solved all problems.
But we still get these big 3 inch ones that fly in at night.
They actually outside ones but if they inside, they’ll park off no problem.
They always solitary, and they real eeeuuw stuff.
I put a disposable cup over them and then and then I slide a sheet of paper under the cup.
Then I rain a death rain of poison on them from a spray can.
And I throw all of it in the rubbish bin.
Then I wash my hands. Twice.

I read somewhere that banana peals drive cockroaches away.
I think it was in one of those house hold tips in a house-wife’s-corner in the local newspaper.
I can just imagine a house full of banana peels.

You’ll need rugby boots to walk down the passage.
All the cockroaches are gone but every fruit fly in the neighbourhood is having a party.
Something to do with the gas that rotting fruit releases.

The gas attracts fruit flies, I believe.
And fruit flies just love rotting bananas, because there is that saying from my friend James Clark that goes:
“Time flies like an arrow, but fruit flies like a banana”.
I mean, fruit flies are far better than cockroaches but they can still piss me off because they get into my wine glass.
What do you do when you see two fruit flies in your wine?
Obviously pissed?
Do you dip your finger in and scoop them out and drink the wine? When no-one’s looking.
Or do you throw the wine away, and pour a new glass?
And if it is expensive wine?
Or your last glass of wine on a Sunday night?

Reminds me of a story, all this insect stuff

We were sitting in Monte-Mart tea shop in Kudu Arcade in Pretoria in the late seventies.

One of the hotties, called Laetitia, ordered a salad and when all the food arrived at our table, everyone tucked in.
Halfway through, Laetitia SHRIEKS at the top of her voice.
She was a dramatic chick.
Anyway, there in her salad, is half a cockroach.
The front half.
And the legs are still waving around.

Begging forgiveness.

So Rob, the owner, hears this commotion and he comes to the front.
Tries to calm Laetitia.
“Look!” she shrieks, “It’s still alive!”
“Well” Rob says, “at least you know it’s fresh”

We fell about laughing, but Laetitia was not amused at all, I’m afraid.

Sigh– women can be so hard to please sometimes……

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Pierced and blued titanium and brass background .

The sides of the tower with pierced brass and a copper background.

All the screws and bolts were hand made.

A close up of the junction box, where the cabling divides.

The top of one of the light towers, with pierced out brass plate that was domed and a copper sheet with a glass inlay

View from the top, showing the focusing lens.

The gear doors closed.

And the gear doors open.

The black handle on the top is connected to a dimmer switch that also functions as the on/off switch.

This is the door latch that stops the doors from opening.

The gears were cast here

Detail of the time smoothing device above the main clock face.

One of the corner edifices that hold time down and keep it in it’s place.

They were wax carved, cast, then vulcanized and injected and cast again.

There are two tube guides. They were hand made out of copper and brass.

A couple of posts ago, I was asked how I achieved this texture.

Done with a 1.5mm ball frazer and a hanging motor. And an evenings sweat.

This was an enjoyable project, done in the Steam punk art genré.

I like this art form.

It allows me to use my goldsmithing skills in metals that don’t break the bank.

It allows me to move into areas that I am not confident in.

This is a good thing for any metal smith, I think.

This project caused me to make many things three and on occasion even four times over before I was happy.

And because everything is bigger than jewellery, the re-work was more significant, and therefore the angst factor in relation to the cheapness of the metal was quite high.

I thought it would not be the case, but when you about to frack a section up that costs $10 in metal but took 20 hours to make, you sweat, believe me.

My next project ,as soon as I recieve my brass sectioning, is going to be making some fancy doo-da display cases.

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These catches are available commercially, but that does not mean there is never a need to have to make one. They are one of the strongest and most reliable catches that can be made in an hour or so. I use these when I make a watch strap, for chains and bracelets. In fact, I have one on my day to day watch and it has not once in four years let loose. The example below is made out of 14kt gold.

I start with a piece of plate about 0.7mm thick. This one is for a narrow chain. If the chain were heavier, I would make it more broad and then out of 1mm plate.

Then I pierce it out like this. The bottom section is going to be used for the top of the catch. Wait, you will see…

Here I have cut the bottom section off and stamped and trimmed it and filed two grooves in it. This is to give a clean neat bend when the arms get bent up and soldered.

I have soldered the two arms and also bent the front up.

These are filed straight and trimmed and the tops are rounded off.

This is the part that I cut off in the beginning. I file a groove at the end.

I solder a piece of wire in the groove. I use solid wire because I drill it afterwards, but tubing could also just as easily be used. Also I trimmed the arms and drilled then with a 1mm drill.

Here the wire is drilled and the top will be bent round.

Like this. I burr a small depression in the front where a small little ball will be soldered on. This is to allow one to use your nail to open the catch.

Here the ball has been soldered and the top been riveted. I like the riveted look but, of course, they could just as easily be soldered flush.

The catch is in place in the chain.

This is one for a titanium watch I made.

And here is another version for a Lavulite chain I made.

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I like little boxes.

So now I make then from time to time.

Finished, blackened slightly with Liver of Sulphur.

This one that has compartments in it so you don’t mix up your headache tablets with your ecstasy ones…just kidding, just kidding.

This one I have blogged before, but I thought it appropriate to add.

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This is the first cross I made. I filed the pieces 45 degrees, quick and dirty.

Which DID fold up like this–but very fugly.

I made several types of hinges to see which one was best.

.
Remember, all this stuff is taken on the fly and is also unfinished, so it looks kak.
So I developed the cross further.
Problem was, for it to fold up nicely it had to be broadened on the center ‘post’. (Is that the right word?)

Anyway, so it folded up into this box affair. About 15mm by 15mm.

This is the top open. But I didn’t like the shape of the cross. It looks clunky.

So I cut 12mm square pieces of silver and glued them onto a dop and proceeded to cut them on my Imahashi.— Imahashi = milling machine
This did not work as smoothly as I thought it would.
Reason was, I use epoxy to dop my stones but because silver conducts heat extremely well , so it heats up super quick.
So no matter how much water you use on the diamond lap, the fracking thing heats up and “poef” –off it is.
Because heat makes the epoxy release.

No matter. All I did, (after a nights sleep figuring out what to do, admittedly), was to solder the thing onto my dop with silver solder.

12mm squares that have a 45º bevel . Exactly.

Okay, so this is the completed box. Unfinished off, but the basic stuff completed.
It is 14mm square.

That pin pulls out to open it. It is one of those pins that doesn’t pull out all the way.

Then the bottom folds out.

And the arms fold out.
The gold one will have stones set in the flat part of the pyramids.
And on the outside of the box.
The unfolded size is 50mm x 35mm, excluding the V-link.

When the arms are folded in they are held in place with those two little lugs.

Like that.
The gold one will have the V-link hinged.
I’m not going to do it on this one because I’m gatvol on working on this thing.But now that the proof of concept is finished I can make one in gold. Then the gold one will have stones set on the outside, and different coloured stones set on the inside. Also the folded up shape is going to be more half round, so that it is not as stark as this one. Also much easier on the cleavage, it you get my drift…..

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I carved this ring out of Ferris purple wax.
Sometimes, when the ‘master pattern’ is complicated, I make a silicone mould out of the wax.
Just in case I screw the cast up. Which happens more that I would like to admit to my mummy.
But this one was biff- bam, thank you ma’am.
OK, not really, but it was not really difficult to carve, so I took a chance and cast it straight into gold. Hans kans ( chance, in Afrikaans ) they call me.

Came out nice.
This is my best gold ball laminated stone I have cut and made, set in a one-off ring.
I really like this type of work because it is on the edge and you not finding it in Walmart or Joe Pogenpoel Jewellers in Lynnwood Road in Pretoria. ( I swear, that’s a real name)
The ring has movement because of the ball, but it also has sound.
It you shake the ring the little ball makes a clicking sound.
How cool is that? Did I ever think of that?

This one also makes a sound.
This one was far more difficult to make.

Firstly, I made a white gold cup that I polished to resemble a reflector. ( the bottom part)
Like one of those solar reflectors that they heat water with in the Californian dessert.
Like that.
Then I set the stone with a thin band of gold so that the entire pavilion was still exposed.
Right in the focus where the water is boiled.

And then, because the pavilion still shows the ball from the bottom, it is reflected up past the stone, looking like dozens little trembling gold balls around the center trembling four balls, which are/is only one ball.
Bang! Done.
A ring that has gold, movement, sound and an optical illusion.
Beat that, junior. (G)

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There is a fine line between a goldsmith making what he wants or making things to sell.

For instance, I sometimes make precisely what I like and, mostly they don’t sell very fast, I’m afraid.

So eventually they sit around in dusty corners of the safe or in the shop window collecting tarnish.

On the other side, most of the shop jewellery I make is not too over the top.

Jewellery has to be pretty, practical and priced within reason to have a good chance of selling.

Believe it or not, this is one of those rings.

OK, so I think it is pretty— Some might not (G).

This is the fifth beetle ring I have made, and whilst they don’t “fly off the shelves”, I don’t own the other four anymore either.

I also just love doing this kind of work.

The sapphire is a stone I re cut from an old junk ring and it came out nice and bright.

It is loosely based on a stylistic Egyptian scarab beetle. I carved basic ring in wax and then I cast it.

Then I carved the tourmaline.
The legs were carved and filed out of 1,5mm 18kt white gold wire and then soldered in place.

Then I soldered the tubes in and set the stones.

The first two pictures show a glint of light behind the stone.

With a stone like this, which is essentially a fancy cabochon, that shouldn’t happen.

Because the stone essentially has a flat bottom so no facets to reflect light.

Polishing the bottom of the stone simply shows the gold underneath and changes the apparent colour of the stone, so that’s no good.

Cutting the gold away allows the finger to be seen, and that works with some rings, but not this one.

So what I do is I finish the bottom of the stone off to 1200 grit to diffuse the light..

Then I rough the bottom gold surface up with a 1mm ball frazer.

Then I rhodium plate only the bottom surface.

This acts as a neutral reflector and make the stone really stand out nicely with out being garish.

It also by chance gives a bit of light movement inside the tourmaline which imitates a green iridescent beetle body quite nicely.

Serendipity, dude…..

This is a ring I made for Lynda. This is work I also really like doing, even though it is commisioned work and not my design.

Made out of 18kt white and fused yellow gold.

The diamond looks much better than in it’s previous setting.

I like asymmetrical settings.

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This kind of work I seriously like doing.

I like carving the stone, carving the wax and casting the result.

This is a fused anti-clastic ring that has diamonds set in the little white gold balls.

Needless to say, this is also work I like doing. In’t pretty?

This is my latest laminated amethyst I have finished
With this one I made the internal cavity as big as was possible without loosing the stones integrity.

What I also did this time, is to increase the crown facets to 40º and keep them high.
Then I faceted the top in a slight dome, like oº, then 10º, then 20º.
What that did was act as a mini magnifying glass, so the center ball appears bigger.

Also, I faceted eight main facets, instead of four. I think this will be about the maximum before the flower effect is lost and it starts looking like a bicycle sprocket.

This is a view of the pavilion.

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