Finished Earrings

Enamelling Platinum...

This is what playing with platinum will do to you.....

Sorry Mish ;)

Soldering the frames...

After the metal prep was done, which to me is the worst part of working with platinum, I could get to soldering... which is the best part!

I started off by bending up my teardrop frames...


...and then moved onto bending up the inside pieces. Again I noticed how hard platinum is when I was bending and curling the wire. Once the little pieces were fitted and sitting flush against the side of the frame, I could easily solder my bits together. The great thing about soldering platinum is that you dont need flux. This made soldering all those little pieces together clean, quick and painless.

The picture below shows how I fit all my pieces together. I cut a piece of wire longer than I will need it, this makes it easier to bend up and allows room for mistakes. Once I have the shape I want, I cut the excess away and file the end down so that it's flush with the frame...

Platinum metal prep

Once I was given my platinum, and my bench was clean and ready, I started making my earrings. As seen in the photo below, when melting or annealing platinum we have to look through a piece of dark glass to avoid damaging our eyes because the metal glows so brightly when heated up...


each member of our group was given a bar of platinum. Luckily my earrings are going to be made of wire so I didnt have to worry about melting any of the platinum, I just rolled and pulled the wire straight from the little bar. I had forgotten how much faster platinum work hardens compared to silver. When I started pulling down my wire I could only pull it through one hole on the draw plate, and then I would need to anneal again.

After what seemed like forever, I finally finished my wire for the earrings...

new chain for pendant

The first chain I made for this pendant didn't look right. The chain appeared too light in comparison to the heavy pendant. The new chain I made was similar, but different thicknesses of wire were used, as well as forging certain areas of the chain.

Amy Eisenfeld Genser

Amy Eisenfeld Genser is an artist that works 'Green', She uses colourful paper to depict underwater scenes. She loves the "organic irregularity of plants, flowers, rock formations, barnacles, moss, and seaweed".

AngloPlat drawings

For this AngloPlatinum competition we will be designing and manufacturing platinum pieces in groups, each member creating a piece that makes up a complete collection.


The photos below show my reference for AngloPlat, followed by some drawings and traces I did for my design.

I am making the earrings for our collection. Because platinum is so much heavier than silver, my silver prototype weight will be multiplied by 2 so that I can estimate the weight in platinum. The maximum weight for a pair of earrings is 5g per earring.

finished ring

This ring turned out exactly as I had hoped! Although the ring isn't very wearable because of the porous and fragile nature of the coral, I felt that as an object to look at, put on, take off and look at again - it serves its purpose as something visually interesting (miniature sculpture?)


The detail once again is found on the under side of the ring, and I balanced out the heavy coral with a thick based shank.

setting and shank

The setting is very similar to that of the pendant. I moulded the long claws so that they echoed the shape of the coral and fit snug into some sections. The forge marks left on the setting and shank is deliberate. Like most things in nature that are formed/affected by their natural surroundings, I would like to think that the hammer and plier marks that remain on my pieces show the journey of the manufacturing process.

Green ring sketches

Along with my coral pendant for the Green exhibition, I wanted to make a ring using the same kind of coral I found up the coast. Once again the detail on thes piece will be at the back, and I want to tie the two pieces together by using the same forging technique I used on the pendant.

The photos below show my designs for this ring...

AngloPlat Prototype

After desiging the shape of my earrings, and deciding that the way I will add colour to them would be plique ajour enamelling, I made my silver prototype...

Because silver solders melting temperature is lower that that of the enamelling kiln, I was not able to enamel onto my piece that I soldered together (far right), because the solder will run and the piece may fall apart. This prompted me to fuse my pieces together, a technique that I had never used before this. These fused shapes can be seen on the left in the photo below.

After fusing the earring shapes together I went on to enamel them without fear of them falling apart. The photo below shows the finished prototypes...