I meant to post these images up last week after my jewellery lesson on the 29th January, but I didn’t get the time. So I’m posting them up now so that you can continue to see the development of my first ever locket prototype.
After spending ages sanding and filing and cutting all the seperate components, I was ready to solder. I’d learnt a new technique to hold the domes in place whilst soldering, which I wrote about here, and after practicing this quite a lot, the time came to work on the actual piece. Amazingly it all went very smoothly. Here’s the first dome getting prepared for soldering:
First I marked out a circle onto the copper plate:
I then checked the positioning of the dome and drew on a small marker line on both the components so I knew how they should be lined up.
I’ve also scored two lines coming off the circle – this is where I need to cut the metal for my hinge plate.
The copper stitches are all done and the dome is held securely in place.
The solder goes on evenly spaced.
Birds eye view…
The solder flowed well, but it looks like I used too much. I thought I’d cut it small enough and was paranoid there wasn’t enough.
Here’s a view of the inside…
I soldered the other pieces together and again think I’ve used too much solder!
The piercing process – cutting closely to the edge.
And here’s one side of the locket – dome and hinge plate – ready for filing and sanding.
Two domes cut out – notice that the one on the right has less to file away – I was being overly cautious with the first one and now have more work to do to finish it off.
A better cleaner cut.
A view of the insides
The filing begins.
Lots of work still to do…