Slump a Mezuzah

 The holiday season is fast approaching. We recently had inquiries on tips for slumping a (fused) glass mezuzah. It seems the writer was slumping the glass over a metal mold and the glass kept on cracking.

There are three different ways to slump a mezuzah.

1. Try fiber paper. Cut the paper to size and then stack layers of fiber paper to the height you want. You can use a drop of white elmers glue or fusers glue to hold the fiber paper together but be sure to let the glue dry completely or the evaporation from the glue will cause problems with your slump.

2. Use a ceramic mezuzah that is not glazed and slump the glass into the backside of the ceramic piece. You can make your own ceramic slump mold (if you have a friend with a ceramic kiln to fire it for you) or you can purchase an unglazed ceramic mezuzah in a studio that sells "made by you" or "paint your own" ceramics (or a ceramic supply wholesaler). Something like this.

3. Purchase a mold designed for slumping, like this.

For other thoughts on making mezuzot see our earlier blog posting or our tutorial on How to Make a Fused Glass Mezuzah. For information on how to affix gold Hebrew lettering on your mezuzah see our tutorial.

Happy fusing and slumping!

Soldering Tips

Small Butane Torch

Recently we have been getting a lot of questions about soldering. Regardless of what type of torch you use or what type of fuel it is powered by, there are a handful of simple rules that must be followed to solder successfully. Most of the time, when folks have difficulty soldering those problems soldering can be eliminated by answering a handful of simple questions; if you answered “no” to any of the questions below, go back and start soldering over.

Is Your Metal Clean?

Clean the metal you plan to solder. Solder will not flow if the metal is not absolutely clean. Remove all oxidation with sandpaper. Remove all grease and grim with acetone. Remove all dirt, grim and residue from sanding or acetone with dish soap and water. If the metal becomes oxidized as you heat it with your torch, the solder will not flow; stop and clean the metal again.

Is Your Seam Flush?

Check that the seam you plan to solder abuts. Solder does not fill gaps. The metal must be flush to solder successfully with your torch. Adjust the metal so that there are no gaps so the solder will flow and bind the metals. If gravity alone will not hold the metal flush, you can use a clamp, binding wire, a third hand or another tool to hold the metal while you heat the piece with your torch.

Did You Flux?

Flux

Flux the seam you plan to solder. Often solder will not flow because the metal oxidizes as you heat it with your torch. Flux prevents oxidation. Flux also helps you know when the torch has heated the metal up to the soldering temperature. The flux will begin to boil as the metal heated with your torch reaches the soldering temperature.

Did You Economize Use of Solder?

Use as little solder as you can when soldering with your torch. Excess solder will spread over the metal and will not add strength to the soldered seam. Excess solder will cause additional work when fabricating.

Did You Use Even Heat to Heat the Entire Piece?

Heat the entire metal evenly with your torch. Do not heat the solder directly with the torch. Heating the solder directly will melt the solder but it will not seal the seam. If you heat the metal evenly, most metals will turn cherry red when the metal heated with a torch reaches the soldering temperature. Once the metal is cherry red, draw the flame of your torch along the seam to direct the solder in the space you want. Begin by pointing the flame at the end of the seam where you placed the solder. Use the bushy part of the flame about an inch or so above the blue cone of the flame. The solder will follow the flame of the torch.

Did You Let the Piece Cool?

Allow the item to cool to room temperature after you have finished soldering with your torch. Do not put a hot item into an acid pickle bath as the seam may burst or the item may explode.

Bee Pin, Soldered Multiple Times

Tip: Use Dirty Metal for Subsequent Soldering

Solder will not flow over dirty metal. You can use this principal to your advantage when you need to solder multiple seams with your torch. Leave the soldered seam dirty and clean only the subsequent seam you want to solder. The solder will stay in place and not melt or come apart where the seam is dirty from oxidation. You can also make a seam dirty to prevent the solder from flowing by painting the soldered seam with yellow ochre powder mixed with water or alcohol or Liquid Paper. Work in a well-ventilated space when using these products when soldering.

Further Reading
Step-by-Step Jewelry Workshop: Simple Techniques for Soldering, Wirework, and Metal Jewelry (Step By Step)
Hot Connections Jewelry: The Complete Sourcebook of Soldering Techniques
Art Jewelry Magazine: Precision Soldering Simplified; Give a Classic Ring a Twist with an Easy Forging Technique; Make a Basic Chain with Spring Links (Vol.3 No.1 November 2006)
The Complete Guide to Jewelry Soldering: What Works, What Doesn't, and Why!
Complete Metalsmith: Professional Edition



Torch
Solder-It Pro-Torch 220 Butane Torch, Model# PT-220
Smith Little Torch Soldering Welding & 5 Tips, Hoses

Make your own teacher gifts

The end of the school year is nearing and you and your child may enjoy ideas for making your own presents to show thanks to the teachers in your life. Teacher presents need not be expensive to be thoughtful. Look around your house and there are many items you can upcycle into great gifts. Here are a few ideas:

How to Make a Pencil Holder from Floppy Disks
How to Make Cuff Links from Games
How to Make a Clock from a Bicycle Chain Ring 
How to Make Perfumed Bath Salts
How to Make a Pendant from a Hotel Key
How to Make a Hair Stick from a Record Album
How to Make Wine Markers

Enamel Jewelry

We love, love, love enamel jewelry. We love to make copper, sterling and gold enamel jewelry and we like to make enamel on glass jewelry.

This blog post highlights tutorials explaining how to create your own enamel on metal jewelry:

How to Make Cloisonne Enamel

How to Make a Champleve Enamel Pendant

How to Torch Fire Enamel

Jewelry Cleaning Tips

If you make jewelry, sooner or later someone is going to ask you the question: What is your favorite methods for jewelry cleaning? There are a lot of chemicals that can be used for jewelry cleaning, but we like to keep our jewelry clean being mindful of the environment. Following are tutorials explaining how to keep you hand made jewelry clean without using harsh, environmentally taxing chemicals:

How to Clean Jewelry with Baking Soda

How to Clean Tarnished Silver with Baking Soda and Tin Foil

How to Clean Gold Filled Jewelry 

How to Remove Tarnish from Copper Jewelry

The best way to keep sterling silver or copper clean is to keep it from tarnishing in the first place. This tutorials recommends how to prevent tarnish on your sterling and copper jewelry:

 How to Prevent Jewelry from Tarnishing

Soldering Tips for Jewelry Makers

One of my professors, I can not remember who, told us that learning to solder is really to gain the keys to the jewelry making kingdom. You can create beautiful jewelry without ever soldering, but if you learn how to solder you will really improve the range of projects you can create.

Before you begin soldering you will need to purchase the correct equipment and then prepare your metal. These tutorials will explain How to Prepare Metal for Jewelry Soldering and How to Make Pickle  to remove firescale caused by soldering.

You can use a number of different torches or gases to solder. When you speak with metalsmiths they are often passionate about their own choice. I have used many, many different torches and gases when taking courses and teaching at a variety of schools and workshops. For beginners, a butane soldering torch is a good low cost item. You may decide you love soldering and want to go on and purchase more expensive, "professional" equipment later; but until you decide this is for you and you love soldering, a butane torch is a piece of starter equipment. This tutorial will explain How to Solder Using a Small Butane Torch.

If you run into problems when soldering, then it is a good idea to begin by checking the basics. This tutorial explains How to Correct Soldering Problems when Jewelry Making.

Most butane torches are self igniting. If you purchase a torch that is not self igniting, you will need to know  How to Light a Torch.

Metal Clay Tips & Tutorials

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We get asked a lot of questions about metal clay. The most common question we hear is "what brand of metal clay is better?" For our money, both PMC and Art Clay are terrific products. Deciding which product you prefer is a lot like deciding whether to purchase Coke or Pepsi. We use both.

Most projects in metal clay begin by rolling out the clay. Below is a tutorial that explains an easy technique to roll your clay out even every time:
How to Make a Metal Clay Rolling Frame

Some folks like to alter the texture of the metal clay to make it easier to use. Here are two techniques to do so:
How to Make Lavender Oil Paste for Metal Clay
How to Make Flexible Metal Clay

Sometimes metal clay dries out. It can be reconstituted and used again as paste. Here is how:
How to Reconstitute Dried Out Metal Clay

There are a number of ways to set stones in metal clay. Here are some stone setting tutorials:
How to Prong Set Gemstones and Glass in Metal Clay
How to Make a Metal Clay Bezel Setting (Using the Coil Method)
How to Set Glass in Metal Clay (Using the Captured Stone Method)

Here we have some stone setting slide shows:
Making Tabs In Metal Clay to Set Stones and Glass
Make Your Own Metal Clay and Fused Glass Bezel Set Pendant
Make Your Own Bezel Setting (with Metal Clay and Fine Silver)
Make Your Own Coil Set Metal Clay Pendant
Make Your Own Prong Set Metal Clay Pendant

Metal clay is great for making custom clasps. There are numerous types of clasps and a lot of ways to make clasps. Here are some tutorials containing metal clay clasp making techniques:
How to Make a Metal Clay Toggle Clasp
How to Make a Metal Clay Hook and Eye Clasp
How to Make a Fancy "S" Clasp out of Metal Clay


Folks like to add color to metal clay. You can use resin, enamel and colored pencils to add color (and we will cover those techniques in a future blog entry). Here is an easy technique to add color to your metal clay designs using ceramic decals:
How to Use Ceramic Decals on Metal Clay

Finally, metal clay is all about texture, sculpting and molding. Texture can be found everywhere and molds are easy to make. These tutorials explain how to collect texture for use in metal clay as well as how to create metal clay duplicates:
How to Create Polymer Clay Molds
How to Use Polymer Clay Molds
Just be sure to use olive oil rather than corn starch when using polymer clay molds with metal clay.

Enjoy playing with metal clay!