Friday, June 15, 2012

My First Metal Bead

I just made this metal bead and I am so excited about it.  I have no idea of how to do this so I am just playing around with some copper pieces that I have and some copper solder wire I bought quite awhile ago. I was very lucky that it worked out.  First several tries and I found that the pieces were not really soldered together.  So I added some regular copper wire between the layers and then the copper solder wire and that seemed to work better.


I love the crusty Bronze Age look of the bead


You can see the balled end pin I used to make a wire wrap on the back and turn this bead into a clasp.

Since I made this I discovered Copper Solder paste in a syringe at Lowe's.  I will be trying that out this weekend and will let you know how it works.  

I have been inspired by a book I recently acquired called Making Metal Beads by Pauline Warg

and Shannon LeVart's Tutorial Hand Forged Links.



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11 comments:

  1. Patti Vanderbloemen15/6/12 07:05

    This is awesome! Very cool texture. Do let us know about the copper solder paste...it would be interesting to know if it works! Thanks for sharing!

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  2. KristiBowmanDesign15/6/12 07:41

    Totally love your crusty bead Mary!!!

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  3. Lorelei Eurto15/6/12 08:19

    Very cool Mary!!

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  4. Cait Throop15/6/12 08:40

    Oh Mary, I LOVE the crusty bronze age look to this!!! Love, love, love!!! xoxo

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  5. Michael and Cherrie Fick 15/6/12 13:02

    That is very cool. Love the old world feel of it.

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  6. Rising Designs16/6/12 10:33

    Mary,
    These are so "sunken treasuresque"! Add a little patina and you have "unbreakable raku. The best of both worlds!!!

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  7. LLYYNN - Lynn Davis16/6/12 14:16

    Wonderful! You are inspired...

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  8. Jenni17/6/12 06:59

    Mary, I love your ancient relic! Thank you for the heads-up re copper paste- solder..will try it myself.
    I have this stick/rod version...no idea how to make it work! I love the bead book..it's one of my favourites.
    Jenni

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  9. Eve Smith17/6/12 12:17

    What a great bead, well done, i love working with copper also, but we don't get copper solder over here, where do you get your solder from? as when i use silver solder it is a nightmare when you have to file away excess solder from the copper. look forward to seeing more of your wonderful creations

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  10. Carols place28/6/12 16:07

    I love that Mary, I havent tried metal work yet, my next project.

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  11. Unknown7/7/12 22:41

    that is very creative and is gorgeous. It looks like it would be challenging to do. I'm curious to try metal work now.

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Raku Bead Video Part III