MAKING CONNECTIONS

Day 9

Busy, busy day today. I have got a commission – WOOOO HOOOOO!! I have to make a fancy chain bracelet and matching necklace. It is one of my most recent designs and it’s the one I like the most as well, so that makes it a whole lot more satisfying to make.

Making chains is my ‘bread and butter’. I try to do a few each day so that I always have some stock made – and truth to tell – I just love making them. Some people say it must be so boring – but I just love it. There is something so magical about starting out with a reel of wire and then, with a bit of time, love and attention I can transform it into a wonderful, shimmering length of flowing, pure silver chain…how can anyone say that is boring????

Until today I have used wire of a particular thickness that I have bought from the supplier. Today, I am introducing a new step to my process. I have recently bought myself a drawplate. This means that I can now make my own wire, of any thickness I need, from a stock of bought in 1mm 18 gauge wire. I have had a ‘play’ with the drawplate – just to make sure it works but today is the first day that I am going to use it to make some chain.

As my time is limited today – and I discovered this morning that one of the new themes involved ‘connections’ – I thought I would use the opportunity to show you some of the processes involved in changing my wire into a bracelet…giving you the chance to see the ‘missing connections’ between the wire and the finished article!! (How contrived is that?!!)

I have finally managed to convince my hubby that it is impossible to work in the outside ‘studio’  when it is so cold as I can’t get the torch to work properly. So I have been ‘allowed’ to set up a mini work area over the kitchen sink…this explains the appearance of the taps in my first photograph! So – having unwound a few lengths of wire from my stock reel I wound each one around 2 fingers to make loose coils.

I then annealed these – this means that I heated the wire up until it begins to glow slightly red. This softens the wire so that I will be able to manipulate it more easily. I then quenched these – dipping them into water to cool them down – and unwound them. I then filed down one end of each piece so that it had a tapering point on it. This is so that I can thread the wire through a hole in the drawplate that is slightly smaller than the thickness of the wire. It is then a case of grasping the wire with a pair of pliers and pulling it through the drawplate (which is held in a vice) in one long steady pull. This process squeezes the softened wire through the slightly smaller hole, thus reducing its thickness. This process can be repeated in continually smaller holes until the desired thickness is reached. After 3 pulls through the plate the wire will need annealing again as it gets ‘work hardened’ as it is pulled through the drawplate

I then wound my wire loosely around a mandrel (in this case, one of my Mum’s old knitting needles!) slipped it off and annealed the coils again. This is so that I can get the wire soft enough to ensure that when I pop it back on the mandrel I can tighten it up as much as possible and I can be fairly sure the resulting rings are all going to be the same diameter.

I then tape up the coil with a little masking tape so that as I cut the rings off the coil they are all held together and don’t end up bouncing all over the floor! I thread the blade of my jeweller’s saw through the centre of the coil and start sawing! Opening up the little masking tape tube reveals a ‘nest’ of perfectly cut jumprings (plus a couple of little off cuts which end up in my ‘scrap’ box!  (sorry about the quality of these photos!)

Using a pair of pliers I ensure that the ends of the jumprings are touching each other before putting them on my heatproof block and fusing them closed. Depending on what style of chain I am making I then attach different combinations and numbers of jumprings together to form the ‘units’ from which my chains are made. In this case, I am attaching 4 of my newly made, closed rings together on a smaller jumpring. The second photo shows me preparing to fuse the smaller jumprings closed.

I will then shape and manipulate the rings in this ‘unit’ to whatever the chain pattern requires and connect the units together to make the finished length of chain before attaching a fastening.

This is a photo of the design of chain I have been making today.