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]
