Recently I've been going to quite a few jewellery making classes, and I'll tell you about the other two later this week. But the first was this one at Process Studios in Edinburgh, to make a titanium ring.
I've always loved titanium jewellery since I first came across its brilliant colours in the 1980s, and in fact I still have a pair of titanium hoop earrings I got in that era!
Titanium is very light, so you'd think it would be easy to work with. But it's actually also very very hard, difficult to bend and to file.
The tutor had already cut out strips of titanium for us to use, so that part was easy. We then used a ring sizer to get these to the right length, and cleaned them up with sandpaper. After bending them into shape we drilled holes and added rivets made of tiny pieces of silver tube. This was extremely fiddly!
The fun part was heating the titanium and watching the colour changes!
There was time left at the end, so we were free to make another ring or pendant. I made a pendant with some marks filed into it for a pattern, and I'm really pleased with how vividly the colours came out on it and my ring. I like the industrial look that the rivets give.
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