The Moh’s hardness scale refers to scratch hardness. The resistance of one mineral to be scratched by another.
Friedrich Mohs (1773-1839), a Viennese mineralogist, introduced the term scratch hardness. The scale ranges from the softest at 1 through to the hardest at 10. Gemstones with a hardness of 1 and 2 are considered to be soft, from 3 to 5 medium, with 6 and over considered to be hard.
Continue reading Gemstone Moh’s Hardness Scale
Some of the gemstone names we commonly use can be very confusing, and often costly to those unaware. For example, ‘Indian Jade’ is actually Aventurine, a form of quartz. The reference to ‘Jade’ is confusing and simply incorrect.
Continue reading False and Confusing Gemstone Names
This pendant was for my daughter-in-law’s birthday. Her birthstone colour is blue so I decided to use a blue topaz and 2 white topaz gemstones with sterling silver wire for the pendant. Again for my inspiration I turned to nature.
Continue reading Nature Influenced Pendant
Jeff and I were invited to lunch at a friends place. While we were there the female friend asked me if I could re-solder a gold ring, I thought about it for a moment and then said yes. The only thing was I didn’t know that it would be a problem because it was white gold plate with yellow gold.
Continue reading A Lesson Learned By Resoldering A White And Yellow Gold Ring
Jeff and I went to Australian Jewellers Suppliers to purchase some new tools. While we were there we were shown a couple of different shaped mandrels. The square one appealed to me and the sales person said that they thought square rings were quiet popular so I purchased one. We also purchased a GRS bench mate I can’t wait to use this as well but that will be in another post.
The next thing is to decide what to make as my first project with the square mandrel. Continue reading My First Project With My New Square Mandrel
It has been great making sterling silver rings but I wanted to venture into making gold rings. To buy pure gold wire was way too expensive to start with. So I decided to find out where I could get gold filled wire. I surfed the internet and found Inspire With Wire. Unfortunately they only have a small range of gold filled wires. Anyway, I purchased some 18 & 16 gauge 14K yellow gold filled half hard round wire, 18 & 16 gauge 14K rose gold filled soft round wire and 18 gauge 14K yellow gold filled twisted wire from them.
Continue reading Soldering Stackable 14k Rose Gold Rings and Yellow Gold Rings
Micro Torches are a great tool but you need to be aware that buying cheap torches from hardware or some where other than a jeweller suppliers can be risky. My experience from buying a cheap micro torch has made me realize this and that is why I’m warning you.Using a micro torch is great when soldering small jump rings and any other little soldering jobs. So I decided to purchase a micro torch but of course I was worried about money so I looked for the cheapest one I could buy. I found a micro torch with a gas torch lighter as a package for $30. This seemed such a great deal.
Continue reading Warning Warning!! About Micro Torches???
While checking out what was happening to my family and friends on facebook I notice a shared link from one of my jewellery suppliers. This link was to a female goldsmith with a difference. As I was feeling a bit flat and in need of some inspiration I clicked on the link and was totally amazed.
Continue reading Do you want to be inspired!!
Looking for jewellery making and silversmith work video tutorials has been an interesting task. The videos I have found vary from free, which you usually have to watch on the site, to paying for them so you can download them for future reference. Both have proved to be valuable, so I would like to share them with you.
Continue reading Finding Silver Jewellery Making Tutorials
I was looking on the internet for some projects to do, I came across this pattern for a bracelet using chain maille. It used a combination of pearls and jump rings.
Continue reading Chain Maille
How did I find out about the new silversmithing classes?
Well, the clip on magnifying glasses I purchased didn’t quiet work for me. So I decided to go to my optometrist and ask if they could prescribe a pair of glasses that would suit. While there I got talking to the assistant (who is also called Anne) and she told me that she goes regularly to silversmithing classes locally.
Continue reading New Silversmithing Classes
For the past few months I’ve been having problems with a couple of things while working at silversmithing on my workbench. Yes, I persisted longer than I should have. It got to a point where I wasn’t looking forward to working in my studio due to these difficulties.
There had to be a fix.
Continue reading Changes to My Silversmithing Workbench