Bicycle Chain Pendant
Project 3 in Stage 2 of the Silver Program at Jewellery Training Solutions. This was a really fun project, but Peter was right when he said it takes time! I rolled the sheet silver myself, and also made the silver tubing. The original project was for a ring, but I made this one the size of a pendant. I already had the copper tubing, and worked out the sizes of everything around that.
What were the challenges?
I had some trouble cutting the tubing since I don’t have a tube cutting jig. Took a while to make sure they were all exactly the same length. Also, the bur that I was using to drill the large holes for the rivets was leaving a lot of chatter marks, and I’m not sure what was causing that.
Where could I improve?
I need to work on improving my finishing. I thought I had it finished nicely, but the photos show every little scratch. Also the shaping of the pieces could be more consistent. This is one of those times where you can keep on going trying to make everything just right and need to know when it’s ok to call it done.
What did I learn?
This project really honed my marking skills, and taught me to think about doing things in assembly line fashion. I also got to practice getting holes in exactly the right place, and how to nudge them over of necessary. This project required a lot of precision.