metalsmithing

here is my first ever ring! soooooo cool!!!! so, okay, there are *tons* of things wrong with this piece, but oh. my. god. i made it! i love how simple it is. the thing that went the most wrong with this piece was when i *melted* it. it's made of two bands; an inside one and an outside one. jack (my teacher) soldered the inner ring to show me how to do, 'cause i'd never soldered before. and i've always been terrified of it. eeek! open flame! so jack showed me how to do it, and told me i had to do the outside one. i can do this. i can do this! so there i was, freaked out, with my acetylene torch and my fluxed ring. heating it up. heating it up. putting the solder on. heating it up. heating it..... oh, crap! it's red! it's *slumping*! turn off torch. dump ring in water. crap, crap, crap. show jack, who says, that's not that bad. advanced student says, "sandpaper it out." yay! salvagadgeable. is that a word? dunno. anyway. so i sanded it till the cows came home. which, of course, *thinned* the metal. hmmmmm... put the two rings together. stretched the inside band. compressed the outside band. soldered them together, and because i was the first one to get done, jack soldered one side of it for me, with the whole class looking on. so i had to do the other side. i can do this. i can do this. so i prepared my solder and then becca comes and says jake had a funny episode where he couldn't see out of one of his eyes. so i left, to get a ride home so becca could take jake to the er. on the way home jake refused to go to the er. i'm getting pissed off 'cause i had to leave my work in the middle of it.... jake's okay. just the wierd, random blindness virus, right? anyway, i went back up over the weekend (before the horrible esperanza concert; see next post) and soldered that puppy. i wasn't as scared of it the second time. i accomplished it! yay, me! so i don't especially *like* to solder, but i can do it. hopefully next time without melting my silver.