25 November 2010

Thursday







Here are some of the new brooches (about actual size on my browser) I delivered to Gallery Funaki today-- had to wend my way through the film set of beer commercial in the lane. Weird. My workshop got flooded by torrential rain. Leaves and sludge all over the floor!
+saw my work on the telly. Also weird.


17 November 2010

Proven Goodness

Provenance-where something comes from- can be very important.
In the case of gold, much serious degradation of the environment occurs in the mining process.
I was talking this over with an old school friend, Mark, who had approached me about custom-making  his wedding band. We decided that it would be best if we could make his ring from local gold nuggets- that we found ourselves, taking care not to do irreparable damage in the process- to seek, but not destroy. After two arduous but memorable prospecting episodes, we hadnt found anywhere near enough to make the whole ring. With the wedding date looming, I decided to get help from a supplier of local Victorian gold nuggets, who fixed us up with enough gold, all of which was found by small-scale detectorists.

Gold- as it occurs in nature, is seldom 100% pure- it will often contain traces of silver for example, and is known as native gold. Native gold from Victoria's golden triangle region is some of the richest in the world, typically assaying above 95% purity- about 22-23k.

Here's what I did with it... and if I may say so my friends, this is a wedding ring par excellence...



These are the natural nuggets. That small one above is a piece we found ourselves ( greatly magnified!)
Firstly, I removed all the quartz I possibly could.

Then, melted the nuggets in a groove carved into a charcoal block, forming a simple ingot.
(remember?)

The ingot is beaten out, gradually approaching the desired dimensions.
Mark requested a band 9mm wide and 2mm high, so care is required to keep to the specifications.






...it gradually gets better and better...
Mark wanted his band to look handmade- but not too rough or crazy- just "not like a piece of machinery". To achieve this aesthetic, I endevoured to keep my method very restrained- to only use hammers, both to forge the shape, and to achieve the surface finishing. No machines, no abrasives.
No material will be removed.










The bend begins. I had initially thought I would solder the join, and have to make up my own high-karat solder- but then... I thought, NO- I'll FUSE it. To solder is to join by melting a less pure alloy into the joint- which leaves a visible line of another colour. Fusion involves melting the joint on itself- a seamless, invisible join. The difficulty of fusion is that you have to get the whole piece up to almost-melting temperature... then just-melt the join– you could melt the whole thing! Its a bit nerve-wracking.








You can see in this photo how the whole ring is red hot- and the surface is just starting to 'swim'; to go liquid. Danger! But, this risk of total destruction is part of the romance of goldsmithing, gentle reader. Commitment is required. The smith makes himself vulnerable.
This makes me think of marriage, naturally; for good fusion you have to melt yourself a little bit.



Perfectly fused! But hmm... it looks a little droopy, no?
Its just this shape becuase I did a 'scarf' joint (big overlap) for maximum surface contact.
Don't fret- its getting better and better.




Next, I forge and forge and forge, with my hammer, stretching the ring to size 'U' on the mandrel, and perfecting the shape.




To get the soft, ancientish surface texture was a matter of damping the face of the steel hammer.

After a thousand and one hammer taps, we have arrived.




The weight is astonishing.
The lustre is celestial.
The provenance is without reproach.
The band is seamless, the simple methodology has dignified integrity.
Wear it well, Mark- 'tis a beauty.





and oh... if you need one of these, or something with the same attention to all the considerations; now you know who to ask... everyone should have their own Goldsmith.

29 September 2010

Zinc / Silver


This ring is about as straight-up-buttoned-down-traditional as it gets around here!
Silver ring with a zinc 'stone'. Almost Harald Nielsen ( a Georg Jensen designer)
For use of zinc in jewellery sans pareil, see the work of Lucy Sarneel
(neale>nielsen>sarneel. see what I did there? jenga jewellers...)

6 August 2010

Peek at Tuesday's Exhibition

Emma Price


Emma Price: Neckpieces






5_p10100211












5_p10101001
David Neale: Brooches

2 August 2010

Jewellery: Emma Price | David Neale








Exhibition:
Emma Price and David Neale
at
Gallery Funaki, Melbourne, Australia
opening night: Tuesday 10th August 6-8pm.

You are invited!

I'm looking forward to seeing Emma's beautiful necklaces, ( pictured above) they are simple and very subtly arranged... I'm calling the linear elements 'beads'- because they're strung square tubes - which are made of variously coloured metals.

As for my work, it will be only brooches this time- with a focus on colour combinations...
lots of muted tertiaries with some bright accents...
Stone dust mixed in too, mostly marble, but I've been playing with Lapis Lazuli and Turquoise as well... for that velvety, powdery texture, like on a butterfly or an old bone, or a Pompeiian fresco, you know?

If brooches arent for you...well, look out for new works from me; especially earrings and rings coming soon!


ps. sorry for the scanty posting here- I'm out of bandwidth 'til thursday...

1 July 2010

The Making of Wire

Ancient way of making wire:
1.Bash out a blob of gold into a flat sheet, ( use a smooth rock for an anvil)
2.Chisel off a strip, ( A stone chisel is ideal (!))
3.Roll strip between two hard surfaces- (perhaps two stone blocks)
The strip will roll/twist into a round wire.

So thats what I did. ( see gold earrings above on green)
(actually, I used clay bricks instead of rocks. And a steel chisel. Sorry)
The result:
grosso modo ma bella!

Drawn wire (the current typical method of wire production) is passé!
Well, its very predictable anyway.
Still the history is also interesting. (WARNING: goldsmithing geekiness ahead)

Theophilus' Treatise (early 12th Century) is thought the first technical description of wire drawing.
A solid rod of metal is pulled through a series of conical holes in an iron block,to make thinner and longer.


A page of Theo's ramblings in german, in case you didn't follow my description.



AD 1389. the first illustration of wire drawing? ( Mendel Bros.)





Workshop of 1576. Note the draw-table with crank wheel (apprentice-powered) on the left. Different draw plates on the wall. Drooby hats and hosiery for all. (Stephanus)



1698. The illustration is more sophisticated, but the wire-making is essentially the same. This wire-drawing workshop has a nice wheeled draw-table, and... drooby hats. No puffy shouldered tunics though. (probably for the best )
Note draw plates on floor. (Weigel)
Historical info from here


OK!
Yawn.


16 June 2010

Do-Over


Time spent pleasantly; making a replacement of an early style brooch for someone who had lost theirs. (suspected theft;... kind of flattering?)












Pre-paint. Possibly better?



I decided to put a roller-style catch on the pin for extra security.
One can just buy a machine-made catch and solder it on, unless one cannot be bothered going into the City to fetch it, in which case one must Make One's Own, which is what I did. Its not as perfect as a machine-made one, but that sorts of suits the piece, and it works very well indeed.


Open position; put the pin into the slot and then the tab at the top rolls down...







and locks the pin in place. Voila!

27 May 2010

Silver Dust Fusion!





This is a detail of a blackened silver brooch I made a while back. Its all hand fabricated, rather than a cast burn-out of a real plant... I snipped the buds out of really thin sheet with little scissors and then scored texture on them with a pin. They are about 5 to 8mm across. Can you see the fine, grainy texture in the stems and so on? ( click to enlarge) This is done by heating up the silver 'til the surface is just melting- flashing- then at that exact moment, sprinkling on silver dust! The dust fuses to the momentarily molten surface! Yikes! ( its tricky- you might melt the whole lot, the sheet is ≈0.1 mm thick dude!) ( just incase you thought I wasnt much good)
While I might be congratulating myself on this technical prowess, in Actuality, I havent been able to get any one to buy this piece, so it has been languishing in a box... in my workshop... for ages... maybe its too delicate? sigh.

14 April 2010

Gold Leafy Ring


Ring, 22k Yellow Gold. David Neale.
The-curled-leaf-idea, an oldy, true, but a goody.
FAQ: Do you cast real plants?
A: No, I make the models from metal; the textures etc are all hand work. I think of them as 'sketches' of life...

( And...Gold is very tricky to photograph! Its rich lustre is so elusive... and I cant seem to get any depth of field with my macro. Time for a new camera?)

9 April 2010

Tonight











Some and None opens tonight...
These are some of the brooches I've made.
p.s. Ive started to make some big versions for the wall.

9 February 2010

Lion




David Neale