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Showing posts from July, 2009

The Anatomy of a Wedding Set

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Commissions are fun to do. Stressful, but fun. The sweetest girl named Jill asked me to custom make her & her beloved a wedding set similar to one of the designs in my shop. I was so honored to be chosen to make something so special, I thought I would share the process...... First I had to build the stock for the bands in flat pieces. Getting the pieces of stock to cooperate and lie flat is tricky sometimes but that is where a good rawhide mallet comes into play. This picture shows the two pieces made for the rings. The one on the left is after the silver has been picked & the one on the right is before pickle, just after soldering with all the flux still on the silver. It looks bad at first but as you can see the pickle cleans it up nicely. Then the next step is to cut the new stock to length & shape around the mandrel to make rings. The ends have to be filed & fitted several times to make sure they fit just right so the solder join is strong. A rawhide mallet works be