I finally found some liver of sulfur in chunk form. I dissolved a little piece in about a cup of hot water, dipped the earrings in, let them sit for a moment or two and then rinsed in cold water. A little polishing of the ring portion finished the piece.
Today I found some reticulation that I apparently didn't like because it was in my scraps jar. I cut a couple simple circles, reticulated them a little more to soften up the edges and then added a circle of square wire. I don't have any liver of sulfer to patina them but I want to darken the outside and leave the center circle silver.
I finally got around to making a tornado ring. All I had was some scrap copper, but it came out OK. I never actually drew it out, but in my mind this is sort of what it looked like.
It was pretty easy to fabricate, I cut a few strips of copper, rolled them through the mill, soldered the ends together, forged them around my rind mandrel and finally soldered them to a copper band. I did very little in the way of surface texture, about all I did was put a soft shine on the band.
I like how it came out, I think this is probably going to be a prototype. I have a few other ideas I would like to try on this pattern, patinas, wire instead of strips of sheet etc...
My daughter asked me to make her a pair of hoop earrings. I did better than that, I showed her how to make them! She chose the wire size, cut it to size, forged it over a mandrel and help me make the ear wires. The only thing she didn't do was solder the rings. She was a little hesitant of the torch. I think they came out pretty well.
