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Soldering Other Shaped Sheet Bangles

Lesson 18 from: Foundations in Metalsmithing: Bracelets

Megan Auman

Soldering Other Shaped Sheet Bangles

Lesson 18 from: Foundations in Metalsmithing: Bracelets

Megan Auman

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Lesson Info

18. Soldering Other Shaped Sheet Bangles

Lesson Info

Soldering Other Shaped Sheet Bangles

So just a couple more things, and we're not gonna go so in depth on them because they're gonna look a lot like what we just did in wire. So pretty much any of the things that we just did in wire you can also apply to strips of sheet to do the same thing. So just like we did with our wire, if we have, if we wanna create kind of an interesting shape, we can use these patterns here to kind of figure that out, so we can use our little cheat sheet to draw on there. And then, we can actually use the same processes. So we can use that same score and bend technique to do this. So the trickiest thing with score and bend on a sheet is not like getting your file all crazy. So what I recommend for that is I took most of them off, but I like to tape handy, handy painter's tape. I like to tape on either side of my lines. So you can see here, on this guy, I just drew my lines. This one is already having them scored, though apparently, they're all a little crooked. But so what I did here on this one w...

as I put tape around it, and then just like we did with our wire, we can come in here and just file this with our needle file. And because your needle file isn't the same all the way across, you wanna turn and file from both directions so that your groove fits. So you can go ahead and file all of your grooves. And then, the last thing that I actually did on this one is I left the last piece a little bit longer so that in the end, this piece, you'll see when I bend it, should match up here. So I'm gonna leave a little bit of excess that gets trimmed off. So let me just show you guys what this looks like bent. (paint tape tearing) All right, so I take my tape off, and then just like with our wire, I recommend taking a nice flat plier and using that to bend so that it keeps it a little bit crisper. I also recommend doing a better job of making your lines even. I don't really know what was happening there. I was trying to prep a lot of stuff before I came, because I figured no one really wanted to watch me score six little pieces. But so now, I can just go ahead and bend this based on my score lines. And then, now, what I can do is I only have to worry about filing this side to fit because I can get the other side. The other side'll get trimmed off after. Does that make sense? And so the same thing with this. I could sit here, and I would binding wire this to keep it in place, so I would binding wire this guy, keep it in place, solder this seam, solder all of these seams. This one is gonna be a little bit tricky to do in one single step, because either I'm setting it up like this. That doesn't really work, right, because of gravity. So you're probably gonna have to do, I would say, two seams at a time, right? So I would set this up on my solder board, solder this seam, solder that seam, pickle it, solder that seam, solder that seam, pickle it, last two, pickle it. Make sense? So that's one option. You guys are getting a hang of the solder thing. We're not gonna set that one up, cool. And then, ideally, nice little hexagon bangle. So that's one option. And then, the other thing you can do is also that same T-joint that we did before. And so just like with this one, what I wanna show you guys here is just actually cutting this end off, because it's a little bit trickier to cut next to that. So I did the same thing where I took this, I bent, pretty much with my hands, because that's what I do. I took this guy here, bent him, and then to get those ends nice and flat, I very obnoxiously took it across our sandpaper a bunch. I'm not gonna subject you guys to that horrible noise again. Set it up on our T and soldered it. And I would solder both of these in one step. And this one I wouldn't actually worry about putting in our cross-locks. Gravity is gonna work just fine for you here, so I'll just set this up, put my solder, and solder it. And when I get it out, it'll look like this. So then, the last step on this guy or the last step before cleanup on this guy would be to come in here. And this is one where you wanna cut as close as possible to this so that there's no filing, but you're not gonna be able to kind of cut exactly. So I'm just gonna come in here, not so there's no filing, but so there's minimal filing. I'm gonna cut as close to this as possible. Clearly, I have to give it a little space, because I'm smacking it, and I'm not able to use the full pull of my saw blade. That's okay. We'll just use kind of short strokes. (sawing) So once I've got that cut off, then, just like we did in our wire version, I want this seam to look nice. So I'm gonna come in here. (filing) And I would keep filing this until this is completely flush. I don't want any kind of, like right now, I can feel a lip. I don't want any lip. I'm gonna keep filing this. And if I even wanted to make this a little bit softer, I could file around, but I think in this case, I would want it to be fairly geometric. So I would keep filing it like that.

Class Materials

Bonus Materials

Bracelets Supplies List

Bonus Materials with Purchase

Hinge Bracelet Template
Bracelet Sizing Cheat Sheet

Ratings and Reviews

user-d7f7ae
 

This is a great addition to Megan's metalsmithing series. She makes the topic really approachable. Bonus that metal patinas were added in to the class. I loved the class!

a Creativelive Student
 

I really enjoyed this class! It was very informative and gave me a lot of ideas for expanding a jewelry line to include a variety of bracelets and finishes.

Student Work

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