REVISITING THE HYDRAULIC PRESS

I've had my hydraulic press for several years, and recently the pancake dies from Potter U.S.A. sparked my interest. I ordered two of them, a small feather die for earrings and a larger feather die for bracelets.

Here is the bracelet pancake die to make the feather cuff. I folded a piece of 22 gauge copper sheet lengthwise and textured the top edge with a riveting hammer.

I annealed the piece, opened and flattened it and cut it using the die and hydraulic press.

This is the video using the small feather pancake die that caught my interest.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KaqmLepANks I followed the instructions in the video, and cut each metal piece in half so I would have two sets of earrings. I have yet to drill holes in the earrings and finish wire wrapping.

Photos of the earrings and cuff after texturing and cutting with the die. When I started forming the cuff on a bracelet mandrel, it was too long for a medium-sized wrist. The cuff measured 7 inches. I cut off almost 3/4 inch and it was so much better.

Here are photos of the formed cuff. I'm so pleased with it! It will be finished with liver of sulphur patina later ... once all the other pieces are ready.

Next I cut two more cuffs from 20 gauge copper without fold forming the center. I'm going to solder a copper or sterling silver wire down the center and add feather texturing lines. I'll finish these and show them to you in my next post.

My Latest Project -- COPPER CUFFS

I first saw these copper cuffs in Art Jewelry magazine (September 2014), and only yesterday did I gather all my supplies and attempt to make a few. The article was written by Eva Sherman, a very well-known jewelry artist. She had taken a class taught by Charles Lewton-Brain, author of the wonderful book, Foldforming. She asked him -- if she created a brand new foldforming technique, could it be named after her. Yes, he said. Hence, the Sherman Fold.

The Sherman Fold is created using round nose pliers, twisting the edge of your metal piece until you like it. Twisting, annealing, twisting, annealing, twisting ......

I started with a piece of 30 gauge copper, 2" wide x 8" long, and twisted the metal around the entire piece.

You can see in the photo I twisted with my pliers pointing straight. After you anneal the metal, you twist with your pliers pointing to the right and go around the whole piece. Anneal. Then you twist with the pliers going to the left. Anneal. Repeat these three steps. You need to lightly hammer the metal with a rawhide mallet after each of these steps to flatten it so it's manageable.

Remember ... You are having fun. Here's how your piece looks. What??!!!

Eventually, you will put your piece in the pickle pot, brush and rinse it, and it becomes something really nice.

In the meantime, you prepare your base piece, which is 20 gauge copper, 1-1/2" wide and 6" long. Of course, the length depends on the size of your wrist. You cut your 30 gauge piece 1-1/4" wide by 6" long (the same length as the 20 gauge).

You can see by this photo that I have cut the two pieces ... and have the leftovers to make other projects! I stamped the two hearts to appear in the inside of the cuff.

Next, trim the sharp corners and round them with a file or sandpaper. Now it's time to shape the two pieces. You need to work harden the 20 gauge piece on a bracelet mandrel(or baseball bat or whatever you have). Then lightly shape the 30 gauge piece and center it on the base piece. You can use painters' tape to hold it in place. The two pieces get riveted together, so you need to drill or punch two holes on each end, keeping 1/8" from the edge. I used copper nail head rivets that I inserted from the inside of the cuff, trimmed to a credit card length and then secured the rivet on the top side of the cuff.

Here's the Sherman Fold cuff put together. It will get a patina treatment with liver of sulfur later. I'll be sure to post a photo of the finished piece.

With the leftover piece that was cut off, I made a narrower 1" wide cuff.

Here's the third cuff I made using the Sizzix BIGkick machine and an embossing folder. I love it too!

Copper Etching .... One more

I finished this cuff yesterday and it's my favorite one of the bunch. I have used this stamp many times in my clay work and now it has become a successful etching stamp too.

More on My Latest Etchings

I finished three of my etched cuff bracelets and am so pleased with them. I used liver of sulfur this time, sanded off the high parts and sprayed the cuffs with the satin metal sealer.

I had another cuff that I had previously etched. It was in the etching solution for one hour. Since the etch was not that deep, the metal patina sanded off most parts and made me very unhappy because I love the design. I decided to dip it into the liver of sulfur too, and WAAALAAA!! I LOVE IT!!

More Foldforming ....

Two days of foldforming and sharing ideas with a friend were priceless ... I don't know how she feels this morning, but my right arm is sore. Although I have to admit it was sore before the work began from pruning trees and throwing the ball for Sarah, my very active dog.

I had earlier posts last year on foldforming, showed some of our projects and mentioned the master of this art, Charles Lewton-Brain. See his book, "Foldforming", if you are interested in trying it.

We both worked on making a copper cuff on the first day. We cut the metal, ran it through the rolling mill, and then used a device I have that bends metal. It's called a "brake" and looks like this. I had never used it for foldforming before, but it sure worked nicely.

We bent the copper on both long edges of the cuff about 1/4" and hammered these edges flat. Sorry I did not take photos along the way, but you can see the folds on my cuff in the photo below. I decided it needed something else, so I folded it down the middle, hammered it flat, textured that folded edge a bit, and then annealed and pried open the fold. That is the HARD part! An old stainless steel kitchen knife works the best, but you also need physical strength, so whatever you have around you that helps open this fold .... Annealing many times helps. My cuff is not finished, but I already like it. The color showing is from the annealing process and from the brass brush. It's already pretty awesome!

On our second day my friend decided to make a ring using the same technique as the cuff. She used the rolling mill for texture and then bent and hammered the two edges. The hardest part was cutting the ring to size and filing the two edges so they met perfectly. After that was done, the seam was soldered. Here's the ring after that process. It needs finishing and then patina application. Doesn't it look great?!!

I wanted to try a new foldforming project that I had seen in the book, "Mixed Media Mania" by Kim St. Jean. I cut a piece of copper 1-1/2" x 3" and folded it in half lengthwise. After annealing this piece, I started striking the folded edge with a bordering hammer working from the middle down to the end and turning the piece over and repeating the process. Each time I finished this process which took less than a minute, the piece was annealed. How many times did I do this? I lost count, but I continued until the piece curved and the two ends were 1/2" of each other. Wow, how impressive! It's already a piece of art! How about a pair of earrings made this way?

Here's the photo of the piece in the book, along with my unfinished project. More to come .....