Читать книгу Metal Jewelry Workshop - Helen I. Driggs - Страница 9

From various types of metal to the various forms in which metal is produced, from beads that can be incorporated into your work to jewelry findings that will make your life easier, there is a wide array of materials to choose from when creating metal jewelry. Familiarity with what is out there will ensure that you can give free reign to your creativity and start down the path of creating truly unique, interesting pieces.

Metal types

Many types of metals are used for jewelry making. Ferrous metals contain iron or steel; they are strong, readily available, and inexpensive, and, with the exception of stainless steel, will rust if not sealed properly. Ferrous metals are more difficult to saw, drill, and cut than softer non-ferrous metals (see below), but have been widely used by studio jewelers and commercial manufacturers since the Industrial Revolution.

Non-ferrous metals do not contain iron or steel. They include aluminum, titanium, and niobium, which are also called reactive or transitional metals. Another common term for some non-ferrous metals like copper, nickel, tin, and zinc is base metal, which is a term used by costume jewelry manufacturers to denote metals that readily oxidize when exposed to moisture or air. Precious or noble metals are rarer and more expensive than other non-ferrous metals and include silver, gold, and platinum.

Alloys are carefully manufactured mixtures of metals. Brass, bronze, pewter, and Monel metal are all base metal alloys. Sterling is a silver alloy, and the various karats of gold are all alloys of pure gold mixed with another metal.

Specialty metals can be custom-created alloys or can be laminated metals like bi-metal and mokume-gane, a Japanese metal that resembles wood grain.

Filled metals contain a core of a less expensive metal coated with an outer shell of either silver or various karats of gold.

Metal Forms

Wire is often the first metal form most aspiring jewelers come into contact with. It can be made from any type of metal. A tremendous variety of wire shapes, sizes, finishes, and metals is readily available from hobby shops, large craft and artist material stores, jewelry supply houses or stores, online, and even from recycling centers. Wire is measured by its thickness, or gauge, and all metal, including wire, is sold by troy weight, a universal system used for weighing units of mass. Metal is priced according to a daily, fluctuating spot price followed by the entire worldwide metal supply industry. Cheaper base metals are typically sold per pound, and are also priced by an often less volatile spot price.

Wire

Sheet metal is essential for creating most fabricated jewelry work. It can be purchased plain or pre-textured and is available in many metals as well as hardnesses and finishes. Like wire, sheet metal is available in many commonly used gauges and is usually sold in square-inch measurements, which are cut, weighed, and sold by the daily spot price for that particular metal.

Milled stock is a specialty product with some types that are more common and/or readily available than others. Tubing, rods, bars, stampings, die cuts, discs, loops, blanks, and components are all manufactured in commonly used gauges and sizes. Forms like geometrics, half-round, triangle, square, and stepped bar are manufactured in many types of metal. Using ready-made milled stock eliminates fabricating commonly used parts from scratch, adds the potential of new design inspiration, and saves time.

Other metal forms include casting grain, metal leaf, and ingots or bars and are used in special processes like casting jewelry parts in a mold, adding a thin layer of gold or silver to other metals, and for creating custom sheet metal, wire, or stock in the jewelry studio using large equipment and tools.

Sheet metal

Milled stock

Other Jewelry Materials

Beads are easy to procure and can be made of glass, metal, organic materials, plastic, ceramic, stone, and more. Literally hundreds of shapes, sizes, materials, and colors are available for any taste and budget from large arts and crafts vendors, jewelry supply houses, department stores, specialty suppliers, bead shows, and online. Bead availability is often related to seasonal or fashion trends, with particular materials, colors, or some styles or shapes of beads being more popular than others and only available for limited periods of time.

Beads

Manufactured parts

Findings

Manufactured parts like charms, blanks, dimensional metal stampings, pendants, connectors, frames, fobs, and drops offer a wide variety of ready-made and easily acquired components made of many different metals or other inspirational materials for the aspiring jewelry artist.

Ready-made findings (also called fittings) are manufactured to provide time-saving solutions for assembling jewelry quickly and efficiently, and include earring wires and ear nuts, necklace and bracelet clasps, head and eye pins, bead caps, mountings and settings, links, jump rings, and chains.

Faceted stones and cabochons can be cut from gemstones or manufactured from glass, polymer, or plastic and other materials in regular shapes like oval, round or brilliant, rectangle, triangle or trillion, pear, heart, diamond, navette or marquis, square, and freeform. Stone surfaces can be left raw, made smooth, faceted, or carved as well as be highly polished, satin-finished, or paper, textiles, and other materials can all find their way into modern works of jewelry art, and can offer unexpected inspiration to both the open-minded jewelry maker and the wearer of his or her one-of-a-kind piece. matte. Cabochon stones are typically opaque or translucent and flat on the back. Many transparent gemstones are faceted on the front and come to a point on the back for maximum sparkle and brilliant reflection of light, although some transparent gems are also cut with flat backs.

Faceted stones and cabochons

“Found” and manufactured raw materials have become quite popular for use in artisan jewelry. Many studio jewelers prefer to use inexpensive, recycled, or unusual cast-off materials in lieu of rare gemstones or valuable metals in these types of works because they hope to convey the value of artistic expression and ideas over the expense of raw, sometimes rare materials. Random discoveries from flea markets and junk stores, cast-off parts and components, game pieces, buttons, hardware, shells, pebbles and beach glass, and organic materials and other natural objects are very common contemporary jewelry materials. Leather, plastic, laminates, ceramic, polymer, glass, wood, fiber,

“Found” and manufactured raw materials