Silver Filled in Jewelry Making

I decided several months ago to try a fairly new product, silver filled.  It is made in basically the same way that gold filled is made and should last indefinitely.  As we all know, plated metal materials not only often look differently, they are not meant to last.  I work too hard on my metal jewelry to use a material that is not going to last and yet, sterling had gotten to a price point that was beyond me, and most important, beyond what my clients were willing to pay.

As you can see, when I use metals - it is allot. The first bracelet uses quite a bit of 24 g wire and there is a huge difference between SF at $0.22 per foot and sterling at almost a dollar a foot.  I have about 20 feet of 24g wire in the first bracelet which translate to $4.40 as opposed to $20.00. For the final pricing, i.e. retail, that can mean the difference in the price of the bracelet of $17.00 or $80.00.  There is even a big difference in the 16 g that I use as the frame.  I have about 18 inches that I use - SF is priced at about $3.00, whereas, sterling would be about $9.00. If you double your price of materials for a wholesale price and then double again for retail, these get to be really big numbers.  In SF, I have $7.40 in materials, but in sterling, I would have $29.00.  I would love to be making these in sterling, but they are very time consuming and the final price would have to reflect that and it would put them out of the ball park. The second bracelet is the same as the first except that I use thicker wire for the decorative part. I don't use much more than 10 feet, but SF for 20g is $0.76 and for sterling it is $2.30 per foot. So once again, in the thinner wire alone, we see a monetary difference of more than $15.00. These are huge numbers when you are figuring your final price.

The only real difference I have found between the two types is that I feel that the SF work hardens much faster than sterling.  For that reason, I only buy full soft wires.  I think that it must be the interior brass in the wire, because brass has always seemed much harder to me than copper or sterling.  I have oxidized SF numerous times and have the same results that I had with sterling.  You do have to be a little more careful handling it during working so it's not gouged - the one time  

that I slipped and really gouged it, I was very pleasantly surprised when I grabbed my trusty Dremel to polish it and see what I could do about the brass showing - and somehow, the silver migrated to the polished part and no more brass showed.  My husband, a retired dentist, says that that can happen occassionally with precious metals... so I don't know if this was a one time occurrence or something that I can count on to happen again. It is recommended that all polishing be done in the tumbler and with a cloth, not to use mechanical polishers.

I have always used sterling earwires and I recently switched to SF for most of my earrings and have been very pleased.  The least expensive sterling that I used was $3.00/pair, and I can purchase SF for $.40 a pair. Once again the cost differential of $2.60, or $10.40 makes a big difference in the retail price. These earwires can be seen on my website, but I have not gotten the bracelets on there yet.

It seems that every day there are new products arriving on the market made in SF, and I for one am very happy about it. There is chain, and sheet, and all kinds of findings.  If you have hesitated to try SF, give it a try, I think that you will be very happy with it, I know that I have been.

Like all my metals, I am very careful where I purchase them.  I have stuck with Rio and Fire Mountain and I'm sure any of the other large, well established metal places would do fine.  There are two types out there. One with 20% sterling and one with only 10%, and I have stuck with the 20%.

If you have hesitated to use silver filled materials, I think that it is worth a try. I know that I have been very happy with the product and I would hope that you would be too.

TOOOOOO FUNNY

I have never copied an email as a blog - but this is too funny not to share. If you are the least bit squeamish about medical procedures, it may not seem funny to you...but I laughed till I cried and I thought that I was going to have to give my husband CPR....so here it is...

This is one of the funniest things I have ever read.   
    
ABOUT THE WRITER: Dave Barry is a Pulitzer Prize-winning humor columnist for the Miami Herald. 
    
  
Colonoscopy Journal: 
  
I called my friend Andy Sable, a gastroenterologist, to make an appointment for a colonoscopy. 
  
A few days later, in his office, Andy showed me a color diagram of the colon, a lengthy organ that appears to go all over the place, at one point passing briefly through Minneapolis . 
 
Then Andy explained the colonoscopy procedure to me in a thorough, reassuring and patient manner. 
    
I nodded thoughtfully, but I didn't really hear anything he said, because my brain was shrieking, 'HE'S GOING TO STICK A TUBE 17,000 FEET UP YOUR BEHIND!' 
  
I left Andy's office with some written instructions, and a prescription for a product called 'MoviPrep,' which comes in a box large enough to hold a microwave oven.  I will discuss MoviPrep in detail later; for now suffice it to say that we must never allow it to fall into the hands of America 's enemies.  
I spent the next several days productively sitting around being nervous. 
 
Then, on the day before my colonoscopy, I began my preparation. In accordance with my instructions, I didn't eat any solid food that day; all I had was chicken broth, which is basically water, only with less flavor. 
   
Then, in the evening, I took the MoviPrep.  You mix two packets of powder together in a one-liter plastic jug, then you fill it with lukewarm water. (For those unfamiliar with the metric system, a liter is about 32 gallons). Then you have to drink the whole jug. This takes about an hour, because MoviPrep tastes - and here I am being kind - like a mixture of goat spit and urinal cleanser, with just a hint of lemon... 
    
The instructions for MoviPrep, clearly written by somebody with a great sense of humor, state that after you drink it, 'a loose, watery bowel movement may result.' 
  
This is kind of like saying that after you jump off your roof, you may experience contact with the ground. 
  
  
MoviPrep is a nuclear laxative. I don't want to be too graphic here, but,  have you ever seen a space-shuttle launch?  This is pretty much the MoviPrep experience, with you as the shuttle. There are times when you wish the commode had a seat belt.  You spend several hours pretty much confined to the bathroom, spurting violently.  You eliminate everything.  And then, when you figure you must be totally empty, you have to drink another liter of MoviPrep, at which point, as far as I can tell, your bowels travel into the future and start eliminating food that you have not even eaten yet. 
   
After an action-packed evening, I finally got to sleep. 
   
The next morning my wife drove me to the clinic. I was very nervous.  Not only was I worried about the procedure, but I had been experiencing occasional return bouts of MoviPrep spurtage.  I was thinking, 'What if I spurt on Andy?'  How do you apologize to a friend for something like that? Flowers would not be enough. 
  
At the clinic I had to sign many forms acknowledging that I understood and totally agreed with whatever the heck the forms said. Then they led me to a room full of other colonoscopy people, where I went inside a little curtained space and took off my clothes and put on one of those hospital garments designed by sadist perverts, the kind that, when you put it on, makes you feel even more naked than when you are actually naked. 
    
Then a nurse named Eddie put a little needle in a vein in my left hand. Ordinarily I would have fainted, but Eddie was very good, and I was 
already lying down.  Eddie also told me that some people put vodka in their MoviPrep. 
    
At first I was ticked off that I hadn't thought of this, but then I pondered what would happen if you got yourself too tipsy to make it to the bathroom, so you were staggering around in full Fire Hose Mode.  You would have no choice but to burn your house. 
  
When everything was ready, Eddie wheeled me into the procedure room, where Andy was waiting with a nurse and an anesthesiologist.  I 
did not see the 17,000-foot tube, but I knew Andy had it hidden around there somewhere.  I was seriously nervous at this point. 
    
Andy had me roll over on my left side, and the anesthesiologist began hooking something up to the needle in my hand. 
    
There was music playing in the room, and I realized that the song  was 'Dancing Queen' by ABBA.  I remarked to Andy that, of all the songs that could be playing during this particular procedure, 'Dancing Queen' had to be the least appropriate. 
    
'You want me to turn it up?' said Andy, from somewhere behind me. 
    
'Ha ha,' I said.  And then it was time, the moment I had been dreading for more than a decade.  If you are squeamish, prepare yourself, because I am going to tell you, in explicit detail, exactly what it was like. 
    
I have no idea.  Really.  I slept through it.  One moment, ABBA was yelling 'Dancing Queen, feel the beat of the tambourine,' and the next moment, I was back in the other room, waking up in a very mellow mood. 
    
Andy was looking down at me and asking me how I felt.  I felt excellent.  I felt even more excellent when Andy told me that It was all over, and that my colon had passed with flying colors. I have never been prouder of an internal organ. 
  
    
On the subject of Colonoscopies... 
  
Colonoscopies are no joke, but these comments during the exam were quite humorous! A physician claimed that the following are actual comments made by his patients (predominately male) while he was performing their colonoscopies: 
  
1. 'Take it easy, Doc. You're boldly going where no man has gone before!' 
    
2. 'Find Amelia Earhart yet?' 
   
3. 'Can you hear me NOW?' 
    
4. 'Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet?' 
    
5. 'You know, in Arkansas, we're now legally married.' 
   
6. 'Any sign of the trapped miners, Chief?' 
    
7. 'You put your left hand in, you take your left hand out...' 
   
8. 'Hey! Now I know how a Muppet feels!' 
    
9. 'If your hand doesn't fit, you must quit!' 
    
10. 'Hey Doc, let me know if you find my dignity.' 
    
11. 'You used to be an executive at Enron, didn't you?' 
    
12. 'God, now I know why I am not gay.' 
    
And the best one of all: 
  
13. 'Could you write a note for my wife saying that my head is not up there?' 

Hoarders United with Jewelry Supplies

I have been using my blog to admit to a number of problems - my techno-tardness, my messy studio, etc., etc...and I have a new character flaw that I must admit to - I am a hoarder. I buy fantastic things to make jewelry with, but if I really fall in love with the piece or pieces, I tend to stick them away because I know that very soon, I will find the PERFECT something to go with the perfect something that I am hoarding.  Does anyone else have this problem?  I think that we should form a group called Hoarders United or something equally inane and if we share what we're hoarding, maybe we'll  find what we are missing and can use the hoarded piece up and that would go a long way to cleaning up our studios.

This is not something that just appeared in my personality, it has been festering for years in the background, but jewelry making has made it much worse.  I used to save new clothes that I really liked for the PERFECT occassion ...and would sometimes find them much later with the tags still on. I would hide a really good snack because my husband is a snacker - and then forget about it til I was cleaning closets, and then I'd feel really dumb.   I still have some great yarn from when I was knitting that I was "saving" for the perfect idea, I haven't picked up a needle since I acquired this bead addiction.

It is now September in Phoenix.  As usual, it has been a slow summer and the snowbirds have not returned to my shops yet, so I am trying to be really good about not buying supplies....but my shops are gearing up for their busy period, so they want product. So I have been going through my supply drawers - I have 25 small bureau size, 18 bin type, 90 very small drawers and one small chest with 3 small drawers...plus the space under 2 large tables.  I have allot of storage space and there's lots of gold in them, thar hills, I found out this week.  Sometimes it pays to have a character flaw, like hoarding. I found some great stuff from Tucson, some A+ quartz rondelles, and a bunch of cut stones that I put away "for later" - and forgot that I had. I had plenty of copper wire and I have been bending up a storm!! Made some fantastic bracelets and necklaces that I'll take pictures of soon and insert in here.

I've come to the conclusion that it's okay to be a hoarder - you just have to learn to check your stash every so often...otherwise something fantastic could get lost in the shuffle.  And if you're getting older like I am, you might find that your memory is not quite what it once was, so it pays to check all your drawers, especially the back corners.  I hope that if you have the same problem as I do that you will find equally good stuff when you search your storage...have fun!  !  !

How to Patina your Metals for Jewelry

I was asked to do a tutorial on using Liver of Sulfur, and why anyone would ask me is beyond me - but they did, so here I am.  First of all, I need to tell you that not only am I a self taught metallurgist, but my husband, a retired dentist, also lays claim to that title for my business,  Linda Sudimack, artisan.  Since my college degree was in Chemistry, we constantly bicker over who has more claim to that title. I am also a compulsive reader - I will even read a cereal box occasionally if I am desperate enough...so I have read every little thing that I have been able to find about how to patina your metals without using a torch.

I have to say here that I love copper - I love working with it - I love it's consistency when bending it - I love the price as compared to sterling....but I am not an orange person.  I do not like the color of copper, but I do love it with a patina. The first jewelry that I made was with copper wire and it was patineed, not very well, but even then, I knew what I wanted!

The product itself, Liver of Sulfur, comes in both liquid and rock form and although I have purchased the liquid form, we have so far only used the rock form.  There are also some other products out there, Rio has one and  Jodi Bombardier mentions in her book that she uses because it doesn't smell as bad as LOS...but she urges you to take it outside, so we have stuck with LOS, because I really don't need another product to cope with.

I think that every one who writes a book, has their own recipe for the LOS mixture, the more anal ones actually measure their water, John would never do that and he does all my oxidizing for me.  Just to be a little technical - that is actually what you are doing - you are oxidizing (or tarnishing) - the metal that you hope to darken.  Again, lots of opinions on water temperature, we have settled on very hot tap water because the rock melts quickly here. John is a natural conservationist ( he's cheap) so he adds as little LOS as he can get away with. You want your liquid to be darkish brown and it does stink like rotten eggs.  We add 2 to 3 drops of household ammonia to this for better colors. We purchased a plastic rectangular bowl at Bed, Bath, and Beyond, that is only used for LOS and it has it's own lid, it is about 4" x 10" x 5" deep and it works for everything I've done so far.  They say that you must use glass or plastic, not a metal pan and that makes sense to me.

I purchased a flat ladle thingie with holes for fast dipping small things - I also made a similar one from wire that is much smaller.  I also bought a wooden toast lifter (tongs) from B,B, and Beyond which is much cheaper than bamboo tongs for jewelers. We use this to hold the things that are being dipped and to pick fallen goodies off the bottom.

After your piece is oxidized to your liking, you will want two bowls with cold water to stop the process.  We use 2 large cottage cheese containers both filled with cold water.  The first dipping is into the cold water that has a couple of tablespoons of baking soda in it and then they go into plain cold water. The baking soda halts the oxidation process by neutralizing the acid.

Now comes the hard part - taking off what you have just worked so hard to put on - but done artistically, of course.  I use one of two products, either 0000 steel wool, from your local hardware shop, or a 3 M product that I buy at Rio.  I think that I prefer the steel wool, but it does leave little threads on your work that are hard to remove, even in the tumbler. The 3 M product does a great job, but I think that it is more work, they are like sanding pads in 4 grits that are rubbery on one side.  I often use a brass brush, from Rio, to scrub the interior of my pieces. I don't like to tumble after oxidizing because it usually takes off too much.

You can cover your LOS solution and as long as it has color it will work.  It is non toxic, although odiferous, and can be disposed of in a garage sink.  You could put it down your kitchen drain too, if you want a good reason for eating out for the next few nights.

That's about it - we tend to wait until we have several pieces to do, and spend the morning on the patio...oxidizing, and cleaning and cleaning and cleaning.  This is truly a labor of love so don't attempt it unless you really, really want to do it.  I don't oxidize allot of sterling, I spent too much time over the years cleaning my silver, so intentionally tarnishing it is mentally very hard for me to do.  I have read that if you are doing both metals to do your silver first and then do your copper.  I have also read that you can get some great colors like with a torch by putting the copper in a 300 degree oven for a few hours.  Haven't tried that yet, but I will. I do not use a torch - I have this vision of me, in the garage, torch in hand...and the house in flames...I don't even flame creme brulee, so my copper is going to have to wait.

I think that I have tried every lacquer on the market and have not been happy with the results - I've even gone the renaisannce wax route and John bougth a product that was quaranteed for like 27 years on outside cupola's - that other than costing allot did not do the job.  I was using nothing for a while and then I tried  an artist's fixative....meanwhile, I read about a new product in an article by Connie Fox which the jury is still out on...but I will let you know if it works as well as I hope. If the product is half as good as the company is in it's attention to detail, it will be a winner.

Beam Me Up, Scotty

Okay, I think it's a pretty well established fact here that I am definitely a techno tard - I try, I really do, but it just ain't there.  A few weeks ago, I got a new computer, because my husband's had crashed and since I am now the one with the business, I got the new puter.  I love it and getting it up and going was tougher than I would have liked, but basically I got there, between me and the geek squad ( God bless them).

I elected to not have them make my recovery disks - it was a $90.00 charge that I didn't want to pay after all the new stuff and softwear and backup, etc., etc., etc., that  I needed for the puter.  During one of the numerous trips that we made to Best Buy - my personal geek told me that I really needed to do something about recovery disks - that if my baby crashed, I would basically be up old sh...t creek without them.  So on my next trip I told the geek, Jason, who was helping me that I thought I needed to do something about recovery disks - and he said, no big deal, I'll sell you the disks - it's easy, just go into the program menu and it will be under the section on your computer --- just click on the part about "recovery disks".  He said that it was time consuming, but easy.

Just once I wish what someone told me about computers would be true - unfortunately, it was relatively fast, but not so easy.  I started this travail,because there was nothing about recovery disks in my computer, out by calling Best Buy to talk to the geek squad - and was put on hold. A very annoying voice told me that I was second in line and fool that I am, I decided to wait. Well wait I did, and after about 1/2 hour I was put through and immediately, cut off. I waited about an hour and then called again, this time I was third in line and decided not to wait. A few hours later, I called and got through - unfortunately, the person that I spoke to needed to be fired.  Believe me when I tell you that this man did not finish first in charm school - because he was alone, he would not go look at a computer like mine so he couldn't answer my questions. He told me that I needed to call technical support and I said that all the help my husband and I had received up til now was from this store and this geek squad and that's who my sizable check had gone to.  He proceeded to inform me that I was in this mess because I was too cheap to pay the $90.00 for them to do it, and that the person who had helped me, was not a geek squad member, just someone who answered the phone.  By  this time my patience was wearing  a bit thin - I said something to the effect that this person had on a geek squad shirt with his name on it, and I was supposed to know that he wasn't qualified to do this by ESP???  He'd already given me the next phone number so when he started off again - I did a rude thing, my mother would have frowned at...but it felt good. I told him that he really needed to try and learn some people skills and hung up

I got technical support rather easily - too many thingies to push, but I got there and spoke to a very nice woman named, Civica,...I wondered if this might be an omen that someone was going to treat me politely...and they did, but she had no idea in hell what I was talking about and told me that she was going to connect me to the command deck.  I felt like I was on the starship Enterprize and Capt. Kirk was waiting around the corner to help me.  It was actually Daniel on the first call and Dustin on the second, they filled in for Scotty and Mr. Spock, but they got me where I needed to be and I now have 3 recovery disks if my baby  gets fatally ill.

I have come to the conclusion lately, that nothing is ever easy anymore - and some people take a perverse pleasure in trying to make things worse, but if you can see the funny side (and there usually is, at least one funny side) your life will be allot more enjoyable.  As soon as that picture of the Enterprize entered my head, I knew that I was going to get through this thing, and I thought that it needed sharing and that's what I'm doing...have a good one all and come visit my shop - it's more fun than my computer.

The Wire Leads - I Just Follow

My first love, making jewelry, has always been bending wire. I love how capricious it all is.  I love that you can have an idea of where you want to go - and how you can end up in an entirely different destination. This piece started life as a large coil and I really didn't like where we were going - so I started bending and twisting  

and I ended up with this interesting piece, which I then oxidized and polished, added that turquoise bead and the chain, and we had a great necklace.  But, remember where I started - a coil, and the end result is certainly a far cry from a symetrical coil and that's why I love working with wire.

I have been so dissappointed with the majority of the retail shops that carry my work, that even though they "Oh" and "Ah" over my copper and silver work, they want traditional strung jewelry.  They all have different excuses for not carrying it. One tells me that their clients don't like copper. Another says that they don't like it. The only places that seem to be brave enough to carry it are the museum gift shops and the "artsy" shops as opposed to the high end boutiques. I have a new "artsy" shop that almost cleaned me out of copper and silver wire work, so I have been frantically creating as I have to visit one of my museum shops and all she wants is copper. This is a western museum and the director likes copper and silver because they are products of Arizona.  I intentionally created the piece below for her.  I knew that I wanted to combine the two metals,

but I had no idea how, what ,where or when. I started with heavy gauge wire and forged it so it was work hardened but still bendable.  I made a frame and the ends to hold the chain. then I added a couple more pieces of heavy wire and one not so heavy.  This front piece was begging to have silver coiled around it and it did come out very nicely, if I do say so myself.

I wish that metals had not gotten so expensive in the last few months.  I would love to do several of these pieces in sterling silver only, but they would be very expensive for my markets .  I use allot of wire on these puppies and I think that we would be way over $500.00 for an all silver piece.  It used to be that my silver and copper were about the same price because the copper took so much more time for forging, oxidizing and clean up. Silver just always seems to go faster, and shining it up is definitely faster, so the time used to equalize out with the more expensive silver, but not any more.  Silver has been relegated to an accent rather than the main show and I am really sorry that that happened.

As a side note here - this techno-tard is stuck as to why this is working this way when I type. It happened after I added the pictures and I just can't seem to get it fixed, so pardon the centered last lines of my paragraphs.

One of the other things that I love about wire is the colors you can end up with after oxidizing.  I am not a big orange person, so pure copper does not appeal to me...but the possibilities with a little liver of sulfur or heat are amazing and beautiful.  I love the tones on the two necklaces above and they are neutral enough to go with almost anything. You also have the opportunity to take copper to almost black in the background, like in this bracelet, or allot of black like this necklace.

Copper wire, your imagination, some pliers, strong fingers and some liver of sulfur and ammonia can take the artisan to some fantastic places which is only limited by how much wire that you want to use. I have no idea how much wire that I used in the above necklace, but I know that it was hundreds of feet. Just remember that you can't go where the wire doesn't want to go especially if you are working in the heavier gauges.  Have fun with the wire and I think that you will be very pleased with the results.  These pieces or close replicas will be available in my shop in the near future.

Further Adventures of a Techno-tard

Last week my husbands' computer took one last breathe and died.  We mourned appropriately and decided to get along with one computer...however, John, my husband, must have "crash computer" fingers or something. I have never had a problem with the dreaded blue screens that he had when he booted up...but after using my computer for only three days, he managed to get two of those awful screens on my set up.  We decided that it was time for a new technological baby in our house, so we traipsed off to Best Buy to hopefully find a geek that spoke English that we understood.

Why are there never salespeople for techy stuff that are past their twenties?  I always feel so old when I have to buy some techy equipment.  Of course, I am old, but I do hate feeling that way.  There was a woman in the geek squad area and she worked there and she had to be pushing 60, and I thought she got lost from accounting or the steno pool...she really looked out of place. Whoa - slap my face for promoting age discrimination...I do apologize.

Anyone who knows me, or reads my blogs, knows how much I not only hate change, but tie that in with something to do with technology and I am not a happy camper.  So this last week has not been a pleasant one in our house, either for me or my husband.  I have been at the screen way too many hours and if he wanted to eat, he had to cook...not his favorite past time.  Right now, he's steaming the floors, please don't anyone tell him that I am having fun writing my blog, not slaving over this d... machine trying to make it do what I want.

Why is it that in making things bigger and better, the creators assume that we know how to bridge the gaps from old to new - or we are willing to discard the old and fully embrace the new?   Hey, I'm almost waxing philosophy here - heavens forbid. In any case, I used AOL...and as most of you must know, only the least geekest among us use that, but, in my defense, I started using that when it was about all that was available and  I am not now changing my email that is printed and stored everywhere and with everyone that I know.  I had a huge contact list, divided into very logical divisions so I could send "sale" mail when I wanted to, contact a couple of groups I belong to, family, different groups of friends, etc. etc. So I go into AOL the other day and they no longer have groups - so all my contacts, probably more than a thousand are all together, and a vast majority I have no idea who they are or where they belong.  There is no fixing something like that - and it not only makes me irrationally angry ( there's a better word, but I hate to be vulgar in my blog) but it really mucks up one of my main means of promoting my jewelry studio. Maybe if I'd know ahead of time, I could have somehow coped with it, going so far as purchasing some softwear where I could have entered these lists and then had them downloaded when my info was brought from the old to the new.

Maybe I am not non techy - maybe I am anti-techy. Something  that is supposed to make our lives simpler and more organized and easier, should not present the problems that it does.  I realize that I am pretty clueless when it comes to this stuff, but how in hell should I know that my groupings were about to dissappear....was this an educational gap? Should I have known this intuitively?  I knew I was going to continue to use AOL for my mail and I assumed my groupings would be along for the ride.  I don't think I would be as upset as I am if I had any idea how to fix it....ah well, it's done, on to the next adventure.

I am now using Chrome for my whatchamacallit instead of Microsoft explorer which I was told that I HAD to do - I am not using AOL as my gateway to the internet - which I am assuming was really lame - so I  guess that I have climbed a few rungs on the techy ladder, but not enough...til next time.