In previous posts I mentioned that I've been working on hammering silver wire, but I haven't shared anything I've made up until this point. Today I finally put the first one up: a pair of earrings along the same lines as my other elf/nature items. I actually made them about a week ago, but didn't post the on Etsy until tonight because I was fussing with the photographs. But after making many more pairs of earrings (yet to be revealed but soon to come, I promise!), I thought I'd share how I went about making them and some lessons learned. - Make sure you're hammer is parallel to your block when it hits the wire. Oh Em Geee..... That was really frustrating to learn.
- Hold the hammer at the end of the handle and raise your entire arm up and down. Do not swing your forearm, or else the hammer will hit at an angle and leave a mark on the wire.
- If you want to flatten the wire, use materials that are harder than it, such as steel. If you just want to harden, use softer materials such as wood.
- The wire will want to straighten when you flatten it, so if you're flattening out a spiral, provide counter pressure on the outside of the loop so it keeps its curved shape
- When making earrings, you can tape the wires together and form them at the same time to make sure each earring is identical. Then hammer them out.
- Photographing earrings is really, really hard. I'm still working on this
- Hammering late at night is not good for neighbor relations. Oops.
No comments:
Post a Comment