For the past few months I have been harking on about trying fusing as a metalsmithing technique for creating texture in my handcrafted jewellery designs

For those who have been receiving my e-newsletters for awhile and following my metal smithing journey, I have been going on about the metal smithing technique of fusing to create and awesomely organic texture to my jewellery designs.

One of the fabulous things about metalsmithing is that no metal is wasted, as it is all collected and stored.

Currently I have 4 scrap pots on the go that I use to collect scrap copper, sterling silver, fine silver and sterling silver and fine silver fillings and dust.

Fusing is a process of using heat to bond different metals together, without the use of solder.

I started the process by taking a piece of sterling silver that was going to form the ring shank, cleaning it and adding some flux to help the fusing process, before adding some sterling silver dust and offcuts:
 

 


The tricky bit is the application of heat for the fusing to occur, it has to be hot enought to get the metals to bond to eachother, but not too hot that the you melt the larger piece of metal to form a molten blob.

Not to happy with the first application with regards to the texture, I repeated the process a second time with more offcuts and have to say this tie I was pleased with the final results:
   
Next I created the ring by forming and soldering before working on the setting for the cabochon.
  To create the ring setting I soldered the ring shank to the setting, and then popped the piece into the pickle to remove the excess flux and oxisides formed during the soldering process.

To say that I was chuffed with the final ring setting and the texture is an understatement, and I think the pairing with the tiger iron stone will really set the ring off:
   
The last bit is to clean up the ring setting, removing any scratches and imperfections, before popping it into the tumbler for an hour, whilst I make and eat my dinnner.
     
It's back to the drawing board for me with this technique, which means more reading, research and You-Tube videos to work out where I went wrong.

Maybe I didn't get the bigger piece of sterling silver up to temparature, maybe it wasn't clean enought for the fusing/bonding to occur, or maybe it's just that once you complete this process you're not supposed to tumble the piece.

Who knows,  but I definitely will be trying this technique very soon!!!

I would really love to hear your thoughts, so post something in the comments below.

Until next time

Joolz xxx

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July 26, 2022

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