Cooper Ring Project

     The first thing I did for this project was planning out what I wanted my focal point to be. I chose a heart with the letters “LC” in it, which represent my late-papa’s initials. After my design was chosen, I began tracing and cutting out my piece from a small sheet of copper. Since this piece had to included two pieces of copper soldered together, I had to cut out two separate hearts. One of which I sawed the letters “LC” out of and I left the other plain. When this process was over, the edges of the pieces had to be filed, and beveled, and the entirety of both pieces had to besanded with all five grits. Next came soldering. First off, I took the top heart (the one with LC) and melted small pieces of solder on it before letting it sit in the pickle for 20 minutes and pumassing it after. Then I soldered the two hearts together and put the entire piece in the pickle for another 20 minutes. While waiting for that, I measured my ring size, cut 14 gauge wire to the correct size, filed the ends, used the rawhide mallet to straighten the two wires, bent the edges slightly to create the split band, and soldered them together. by the time that was done, my piece was finished in the pickle and ready to be pumassed again. While my band was in the pickle, I filed and sanded the edges of my piece again to ensure they were the exact same shape and size. When that was over, I removed my band from the pickle, pummased it, and bent it into the ring size and shape that would fit my finger. One of the last steps in my process was to solder the actual piece to the split band. When it was soldered, I placed it in the pickle one last time, pumassed it, and put it in the patina. The final step was taking off the patina to give my piece a polished, glossy finish. 

     The I enjoyed sawing my piece and the negative space most of all, and I learned that sawing works best when you go slow and steady. I challenged myself by deciding to use the split ring, which ended up turning out very well and looking nice with my piece. This project I feel that I did better sanding, but my design was not as creative as my previous one was or as it could have been. If I were to do this project again, I would chose a different design that still had meaning, but wasn’t quite as basic.