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".