Jewelry Making by Suzdezigns: I'm back........................

I know it has been forever since I have been on my blog. A lot has been going on in my life and I just have not had time. However, about 2 weeks ago, I took a soldering class. I learn how to solder sterling silver wire together into several different shapes and then either leave them round or hammer them thin with different designs on them. This was a great class and now I am in the process of purchasing a soldering machine so I can make jewelry. In the class I started to make a necklace and need to finish that and then I plan on making a matching pair of earrings. I took this simple wire:

And turned it into this gorgeous necklace. Now I was in this class for like 8 hours and this is all I could get done. It is a lot of work. First you need to shape your wire into the shape that you want and then you need to solder that wire together. Now that is a tough task to learn. It is hard to get the touch of heating the solder to flow into your gap of your shape. Sometimes you will over heat the solder and it wont flow. Then you have to start over by cleaning your piece and then re-soldering. But it was an awesome class. Once you solder the piece together, you then need to file down your solder spot. As you can see on this first picture, the first small circle next to the big one, you can see where I soldered it together. The solder makes a little bit of a lump and you need to file that down. So your first step is to solder all of your circles together and then you need to clean them up by filing them. That is the step that I am at right now. I need to finish making my jumprings and different shapes, solder them all together and then file each of them down.

After you have filed all of your pieces down, you then need to buff down your piece and then add a little shine by polishing it to make it shiny. I am not near that point yet. I have 2 more hours of soldering time that I get along with my class. In the next few weeks I will be scheduling that and then I will try to finish all of my soldering and then come home and start the process of finishing it. Once I am finished I will post more pictures. If you have the opportunity to take a soldering class, take it.