Woo! Woo!

Week sixteen has come to an end, my friends. The increase of the weeks is accompanied by the pleasant decrease in the number of weeks left of class, which of course means that I’m happy to announce that we move into the single digit weeks as of Monday. Only 9 of ‘em left! I’ve decided that after school is over it’d be a shame to leave all of you dangling, so I may continue to write this blog to sort of record my job hunting adventures. Although I cannot guarantee that I’ll be so diligent about the weekly posts. May be a bit more sporadic my friends.

Moving on.

Ok. Well this week we did 2 things. One was the tackling of “Wanda Woo’s Wedding Band” and the other was bench exam #5. That’s it. Monday we started Wanda with our usual round of Monday enthusiasm and optimism (pause, insert deadpan stare) ….SO, I like to explain to you what our project bags come with sometimes because I want you all to understand what is involved in these projects a bit more. I don’t want everyone to assume that we get a sack of pre-manufactured parts and all we do is assemble them.

No no, dear ones, no no.

The Wanda Woo project bag contained the following items:
-One bag of casting grain (which for all practical purposes a crap-ton of tiny metal pebbles)
-One round brilliant cut
Period.

The short story of how this ring is made is this: We had to melt the metal and pour and ingot (see blogs 1-4 for reference), roll the thing into specific sized stock (which involves annealing, rolling, annealing, rolling, annealing, rolling and annealing some more) and then making a simple band. From there you marked this thing everywhere. We scribed lines to divide it into quarters, halves, 45 degree angles and then had to file a specific taper on the band. And by specific I mean in millimeters:

Once that was done you had to make into what’s called a knife edge. So instead of the ring being like a half round shape, both sides of the ring come to a very defined line. You’ll see what I mean in the picture. Sorta. So once that was done then we had to fabricate a stepped bezel out of the remaining stock. (this is so hard to explain) which is essentially a round tube of metal with a smaller round tube of metal soldered inside of it. Ok, so once we had that done we had to cut our precisely filed band open and fit this round hunkin piece of bezel into it neatly and not crooked. AND THEN we had to modify the bezel with V shaped cuts on the sides (which had to line up with the knife edge of the shank). From there we had to cut the seat for the stone, set the stone and then do what’s called a bright cut on it. And then polish it and pray to the god of your choice you don’t mess up the knife edge in the process.

Final product! (sorry if the image sucks)

The bench exam was a duplicate of a previous project “Xavier Xanadu” (the names make me giggle) which involved taking a pre-manufactured band, modifying it to accommodate 2 heads for 2mm stones, soldering those in, setting the stones, sizing it up (mine went up 2 ¼ sizes! Dang!) and setting a pearl. Which, again, involves a dab of 2 part epoxy. The only difference is we didn’t have to half shank the damn thing WITH a pearl attached (shoot me). Since we had already essentially done this project once, doing it again wasn’t such a big deal and actually went far smother than the initial ring. That was a one day exam which only four of us completed in one day (mine came screeching into the job box at exactly 3:01 p.m…. class ends at 3). The rest of the class had Friday to finish it up. All of us spent the remainder of Friday finishing up Wanda, which was SUPPOSED to be a three day project.

Monday we have the pleasure of starting a project that will in the end be a hinged charm. Hinges and I are not friends (much like chains and i) and I hoped that I would never see them again after receiving my BFA. However, the torture continues and I will certainly have some nightmare inducing stories next week.

The action words that spring to mind when I hear the word “hinges” are:

seize.

freeze.

melt.

crying.

Stay tuned.

The week has gone well for me. The projects are getting understandably more tedious and difficult not only in fabrication, but in time of completion too. I’ve kind of gotten to the point where I’m just elated to get the damn thing done, and don’t expect miracles in regards to how FAST I can do it. I’ve found pleasure in sneaking up on the fabrication of these pieces and found that taking and extra second or four to contemplate my next move is the key to completing them well and within the parameters of the project. There are still some speedboats in our class that whip through it only to discover mistakes “after the fact” and that they should have approached it a bit slower and with more caution.

What else is going on? Not much I say. I sort of feel like I’m in this perpetual look of work, school, sleep. I’m ok with that for now but I promise you I’m looking forward to getting into a normal work routine and maybe having a life again. Maybe more money would be nice although I don’t expect tons of it. Just more than I have now would be awesome. I’d like to exist on more than tuna , fruit and sandwiches some day. :) Until that day, cheers to happily evolving!

Until next week my friends,
Be well.