Just hit it with a hammer!

I took a metalsmith class the first week of November called Forging for Jewelers.  It was taught by Kay and Tom Patterson.  It was a good class. I learned a lot.  I also learned that I never really want to hammer out 4 and 6 gauge wire to make anything ever again.  I might do some much smaller gauge work but my hands a week later were still numb. I made some nifty stuff.  I also learned loads about hammers, heating and annealing metals, what is a good temp and what is too hot.  How to hammer it so it gets thick, think, square, round, diamond (hateses the diamond). In general we started with a 6 in, 4 gauge copper wire.  We then annealed the wire.  Hammered the end of the wire until it was square.  This process sounds easy… it’s not.  The wire tends to want to go diamond shape.  When it does you have to hammer/file it round again.   Re-annealing it is important.  Mostly we learned to feel when the metal was getting work hardened and how to draw out the metal while we hammered.  The shape we made was a flat eye shape, tapered at both ends and fat in the middle but it had a consistent thickness. We then annealed that and twisted it using the smallest crescent wrenches I’ve ever seen. They were so cute.  Once we twisted our tapers we then hammered over the twists.  I curved mine so that I could wear it as a bracelet.  8 hours of hammering = 1 bracelet = could not give me enough $$ to make more of these.  I couldn’t make a fist the next morning. My fingers were all swollen.  (Insert sad violin music).  But I went back the next day picked up the hammer and the more you work at it the better I got and the better my hand felt.  That plus some extra strength anti-inflamatories taken in the morning, at lunch, and before bed.  My back got hacked off at the standing all day.  But overall it was a good experience and I can see making some things on a much, much smaller scale.  Like earings or rings or flowers.  Something small.  I am also intrigued by the idea of incorporating it with some of my enamel work so we will see if it works it’s way in or not.  More tools for the toolbox and a much higher comfort with the torch annealing. All good.  http://picasaweb.google.com/heronskeep/ForgingForJewelers?feat=directlink

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