Jewelry Making Silver Sterling Supply
Q.I am just starting out, and I am most interested in making all sorts of sterling silver chains. I have practiced making links using copper wire and I have sterling silver wire and I'm ready to start on that. In the books I have read, they say to use an adjustable Jeweler's saw with #0 blades to cut the jump rings. I live in PA and we have limited craft stores, and none of them seem to carry anything like this. The jump rings I am starting out on are 4mm. Is this the proper saw blade i should be using on these? Also, in these books they are using bigger propane torches and sheet solder for soldering the links. Is it ok to use the small butane torches and wire solder? What is the proper solder to use on sterling silver? Sorry for all the questions, I'm really new and I've tried reading a lot of different things, it just seems everyone has a different opinion. I'd appreciate any recommendations of any books making wire jewelry and/or supply sites.
A.You want to get "Making Silver Chains: Simple Techniques, Beautiful Designs" by Glen F. Waszek. It will walk you through everything you want to know about making sterling chains It's a good average size. You want to go as thin as you can (less waste/closer tolerance) without using a size that you break all of the time. As your skills get better, you will find your blade sizes getting thinner. You might want to go with an assortment of sizes until you get it figured out. Buy bees wax for lubrication. If the small torch will heat the whole piece, to get your solder to melt, it will work. If not (as I suspect will be the case), you will have to buy a larger torch. I used one of those cheapy handheld propane plumbers torch for years as a kid, and it worked just fine (still do when I run out of oxygen for my Hoke). It doesn't have the pinpoint accuracy the smaller torch has, but it offers the needed heat. With silver, where you have to heat the whole piece anyway, the heat is usually more important. As far as sheet over wire, I find wire a bit more versitile, sheet a bit less wasteful/more accurate. If you want a "snippit" of round wire just cut a small piece and flatten it with a hammer. As your skill grows you will be able to put the wire solder in a pinvise and feed it to the solder joint by hand. The standard answer is that you use progressivly softer (lower melting point) solder to keep earlier pieces from falling off. As you get better, and plan your solders better, you can use hard for everything on most designs. Everyone has their own way of doing things. What works for some, doesn't work for others. My recommendation is to try it the way the book says (at least the one that sounds best to you), and when you run into roadblocks, ask. As you get more experience, you will get a better idea of questions to ask to refine your skills. As is suggested often on here, Tim McCreights book "The Complete Metalsmith" is a good all around book. It's not geared specifically towards wire jewelry, but has great background and alot of good information.
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