How to Make Soldered Jewelry, Episode #8 - Soldered Jump Ring Chain

 

hey there i'm aisha vermanski with

everthine jewelry and i'm Lisa Niven

Kelly here for Beaducation.com and we

have come together in this introduction

to soldering series to teach you all

kinds of soldering stuff

and then this episode we are gonna make

a chain super fun and sometimes can be

tedious

let's be honest

[Music]

so this was the first project that i was

taught when i went to jewelry smithing

school back in the day back in the day

yeah back in the day and it's a great

great way

to practice patience

and this very kind of small

small work

patience was our number one in our

golden rules and if remember this is a

series if you haven't watched those

beginning classes jump on over there we

kind of walk you through to this point

but in there we talk about the golden

rules the metal has to be touching the

metal has to be clean you need to be

patient and safety

of course of course in this class we're

going to use a blazer torch because we

need that small specific flame to solder

these jump rings a little pointy yeah

and last but not least

take your time to close these jump rings

and if you need practice

closing those jump rings we have a

couple classes to refer you to we have

the beginning chain mail class yeah over

on beachcation.com it's a chain mail

class but for chain mail to succeed your

jump rings have to be super closed so

colin goes over how to how to close jump

rings really well it's the first step

it's a really cool class or we have a

product video on closing jump rings but

again that's going to be key is to get

that nice and shut

here i have the chain

resting on the kiln brick i have a t a t

pin

just anchoring the chain down at the end

so that if i need to pull or

adjust any of the jump rings it won't

move too much

cool yep and then here on the charcoal

block i have teeny tiny these are

smaller than normal yeah i see

hard solder pallions

we're doing that because the kiln brick

has all these little pock marks and

holes in them

and these little pallians are so small i

feel like they're all just going to fall

in those holes so yeah that's why we're

bringing that in i i use a sharpie

marker or felt marker to put a little

dot on you know exactly where the seam

is

because the sterling silver when the

when the jump ring is closed it's kind

of hard to find the seam

and once we put the flux on it's going

to be even

more of a challenge the second thing

i've done

is

you'll notice here

you notice that like every other

link

i have them facing us

right

like straight on straight on

and then

the ones that are adjacent on the back

here

i have them all laying the same way

and i'm doing this because and it's it's

potsy it's really

um because once we flux and we start to

heat stuff

most likely we're gonna lose like track

of where the seams are but you know that

all of these ones

are right in front facing us yep and all

of these ones are pointing to the back

good one so

if you need to solder blind you could

i'm going to blindfold you and test that

i think we'll start with just soldering

this section

i'm not going to go ahead and adjust the

whole length of it let's just let's do

like one third and one third and one

third okay i think that'll be a good way

to go about it

let me show you

the pit the part where we just melt a

pallion into a little sphere and pick it

up with the the solder pick yeah because

that's a good thing to practice

[Applause]

i am going to spray a little bit of

flux on the solder it's just gonna

doesn't hurt and always helps

all right let's go for this one here

can you just

go for it just hit it

see it it's so tiny

and the reason we're showing it like

this because once we start pick

soldering on the chain we're not going

to be able to

show you picking it up we want to be

crazy again

okay okay

i'm going to stop start by applying some

flux to that section of the chain

we can still see those sharpie marks

through the yeah that's cool cooper now

which is very helpful

you still love your little gadget i do

you want a really pointy torch for this

that t-pin is stealing some of my heat

there we go

going back off camera to grab another

little pallion

i do recommend

i imagine doing this with

fairly heavy gauge jump rings

yes

yes what are these 18 meters these are

18 gauge

six millimeter id

go in right up to the seam

and deliver that little solder

did you see that one went to the right

so

let's do it again

we have to concentrate on not

melting the one next to it now you'll

notice too i like i can't talk while i

deliver the solder it's

it's um this is very precise work

and she's also bracing her hand what you

guys can't see on the outside

of the table

just to the right of the brick

so she's not

pre-flying and shaking

you'll also notice that she makes it

look really easy

all right

let's continue soldering the rest of the

chain what's happening with those two

pins oh yeah so i have the chain um

kind of suspended it's not suspended

because it's laying on the kiln brick

but i had i had it laying down and i was

trying to

put the solder seams like so that i

could see them with my tweezer

by the way this tweezer is wonderful for

this

and it was just flipping around and

rolling around so i pinned one end down

and then pulled it taut with a little

tension and pinned the other end

and then when i went to like rotate and

everybody's staying yeah everybody's

chill now that's cool yeah

so let's keep let's keep going

do any questions before i start

um

no cool

[Music]

wow

well done

i was thinking while you were doing that

i hope the torch doesn't run out of gas

so if you guys are doing a project like

this where the flame is on for quite a

bit of time just make sure you top it

off before you jump in

let me zoom in

it looks good you know a project like

this can seem pretty tedious yeah you

know but

the practice is really really good and

actually the rhythm kind of does get you

in this little bit of like a little

meditative

kind of cool thing so i like it

off to the pickle off to the pickle

the chain is fresh out of the pickle pot

here it is

yeah turned out pretty well

so of course you'd want to go and check

your solder seams and go back and

re-solder any that didn't

successfully get soldered closed

right

it looks pretty good it's cute

so i was thinking

that i would show them

how to

make

the circle links and ovals ooh sound

good yeah let's do it so you could

do

we could make each one

every

circle into an oval or we could do every

other yeah

all right every other so this is pretty

simple

we're going to use

round nose pliers

and the way that i do it is i just place

the handles of this pliers so long i'm

like

under here

okay um

place the jaws of the round nose

because the metal is really soft super

soft yeah

inside your link and then

pull apart

all right and i'm not using

all of my strengths you know

this is also going to really test the

strength of your solder it seems right

yeah

just like that

let's do a few more

and it's done

i'm going to try to put the solder seam

on the side but it's not that

important

so

i would throw that in the tumbler when

it's done would you

yeah you could throw this in the tumbler

i would recommend

um binding it up a little bit before you

put in the tumbler

oh so it doesn't get all textured so it

doesn't get tangled and the way that you

would do that is you could take a piece

of scrap wire

and kind of just thread through maybe

every other

link

you could use a raymade clasp you could

make a clasp

yeah easy i know you guys know how to do

that well and handmade clasps looks so

beautiful on handmade chain there they

do so i went through every other

right

yeah i like it but not you're not making

it too tight so they no you want the

yeah i want the shot to still be able to

get

yeah

around

so this is a great way to

to uh tumble chain

nice

here's the chain out of the tumbler oh

my gosh i should look so cute it's

really pretty and look how it's smooth

over all those soldering irons it kind

of hides them so i have made just a

super simple clasp on here hook and eye

clasp and it's a basic chain but what an

awesome exercise yeah this looks great

[Music]