Bringing copper clay to life

Firstly, I must apologise for the delay since my last post, but between health issues, our annual 'summer' holiday (I use the word advisedly, it didn't feel much like summer in the storms) and being kept busy with some lovely custom orders, time has simply got away from me.

As I promised that I'd post this subject some time ago and I've already prepared the photographs, I may as well continue and complete the post, even though some considerable time has passed since I said I'd be doing so.

I'm going to show the many stages it takes to make a jewellery set like this from copper clay.

As previously posted, I've really been enjoying working with copper clay, a somewhat new adventure for me. I resisted for some time, until I felt I'd mastered sufficient skills with actual solid metal before taking myself off on a tangent. It's an amazing medium, it allows you to achieve results that would be either very difficult, time consuming or even impossible with solid metal forms. I read an article by an experienced jeweller that said she used PMC for things that she simply couldn't do by other means - as a supplement to metal, not instead of. So that has been my thinking with it thus far. To try things that I couldn't otherwise accomplish. Hark at me, like I'm an expert. Far from it, I'm learning at a very steep rate and still have a long way to go.

Whilst it's amazingly good fun to work with and you can do really interesting things with it (and I've only scratched the surface so far) - I don't feel it's a short cut to quick or easy results either. It still takes a lot of work to get good results. I suspect in my case some of that is related to the fact that I'm torch firing and not using a kiln - it takes longer to fire the piece in that each one has to be done individually and I suspect that the firescale on the copper I'm using is possibly deeper - and more time-consuming to remove too.

I thought I'd show some work-in-progress photographs of the various stages that a piece has to go through, not as a tutorial in any way (I'm simply not qualified yet to try and impart information on this subject), but purely as an insight as to how much work a particular finished piece represents. The particular design of the pieces indicated is a rather simple technique, pieces that incorporate sculpting and assembly of components can take much longer.

Most of the photographs are of a particular earring and pendant set, although some of them were taken retrospectively with another piece as I simply decided later that I'd missed some stages worth including.

The clay is rolled out to the desired thickness on a non-stick sheet, in this case, using some sheets of plastic as my spacers.

I imprinted the sheet of clay with my chosen texture - in this case, a spiral I formed with a piece of wire.

The shapes are then cut out of the sheet and shaped and formed, as desired, whilst still moist and pliable. They then need some time to dry enough for further handling. I choose to do some of the further work before the pieces dry to the stage of becoming brittle. At this stage it is certainly more clay and less metal (despite the rather incongruous sensation of being cold and metallic to the touch) and I liken it to dry pasta - firm and robust enough to handle, but you could just break it with your fingers if you chose, so it does need some care. I like to drill my holes and refine the shape a little whilst it's dry to the touch, but not dry enough to fire - it simply seems more brittle to me by the time it reaches that stage.

The left hand earring piece as I formed it initially from the moist clay and the right hand one is after some filing, rounding of corners and refining the shape and surface - as you smooth it, it does take on a more metallic appearance.

At this stage, I leave them on wire mesh to dry really thoroughly for at least a couple of days. I've had some pieces crack or pop during firing and the manufacturers advise me this is the rapid vapourising of any tiny water molecules remaining within the clay as I bring it to the flame to fire it. I'm not convinced that moisture is entirely to blame for all my cracks (and I've made some modifications in my workflow to address the issue), but I think it must certainly have been in the piece that popped loudly and broke away surface pieces as soon as it got hot.

I fire each piece individually with the torch, in accordance with the recommendations for the particular product I'm using. I can manage either a single large piece or a couple of smaller ones in each firing. I work in reduced light so that I can monitor the colour of the metal and the flame.

After firing and quenching, my lovely smooth piece of clay looks pretty terrible - the firescale on the surface will need removing - and this is perhaps the most tedious stage of the process, although some trial and error has established a pretty good routine for me to get it clean again with minimal elbow grease. First I pickle and then tumble the pieces extensively to bring out the shine of the metal now revealed after burning off the organic binders.
Of course, the metal clay pieces are only components and I also need to make the accompanying metal parts too - in this case, I decided to go for some fancy feature earwires with a co-ordinating decorative spiral. I also make all my own jump rings and clasps for finished pieces.

The earrings are as such now complete and I've antiqued them to bring out the lovely aged warmth of time-worn copper, which is my own personal preferred finish for copper. I'm next going to add some colour to this particular set and after some earlier trial and error, had decided that antiquing first and then applying the colour gave the most pleasing end result. Before colouring, I removed the copper clay charms from the earwires to protect them.

I'd originally had it in mind to combine the copper clay pieces with enamels, but whilst researching types and materials, came across the US made product Gilders Paste, which sounded even better for what I had in mind. It's a solid opaque and intensely coloured wax type substance that comes in little tins and looks for all the world like old-fashioned shoe polish. It can be used and applied just about any way you can think of - you can do anything from rubbing it on with your finger to airbrushing it on as a wash mixed with a solvent. I decided that a short cut-down and very inexpensive paintbrush allowed me to stipple it well into the recessed pattern areas, giving good coverage.

It's specifically for colouring metal, but can be used on many other suitable surfaces too. I've found that it seems to work very well on the less metallic and shiny parts of the clay that were impressed and therefore not as subsequently highly burnished smooth. Still maintaining some of the porosity of the original clay texture gave it a good key to adhere to. I think for a good covering on the metal surface, it would need roughening to give it a better key and would lose some of the metallic sheen and therefore may not be quite as attractive for the effect I was after. On solid metals, I found that it scratched off too easily, but it adheres well to the rougher texture of unpolished clay areas. Solid copper would need a texture for key to work reliably - but I have some ideas for that too.

Once allowed to dry for a number of hours, the piece can be rubbed clean and finally polished - the Gilders Paste is robust once dry and should last well in wear. On these pieces, I stippled both a verdigris turquoise with a darker metallic green to give the appearance of patina but I didn't want a solid single flat colour. The photo below was taken between wiping off the excess from the surface before fully dry and the final buffing and cleaning.

Some finished copper clay pieces using Gilders Paste for colour:


And finally . . .

As I've been typing this, with the TV on in my office, the weather man declared that some places in Britain today (the 10th of July, may I remind you) were actually colder than they were on Christmas Day! So you can see why I had some reservations about declaring our most recent holiday to be our summer one!

New Adventures in Etching

In my previous blog post, I'd shown some new pendant designs using sheet copper, where in the past I'd worked largely with wire based designs. My intention, when stocking up on sheet, before I got distracted with some other ideas, was to set up to do some etching. I'd been accumulating the necessary materials over time and working out the methodology and designs in my mind and sketchbook.

I had in mind that I wanted to combine my love for photography and an extensive portfolio of available images with my jewellery making. It was my idea to take suitable photographs and put them into a stylised monochrome format in order to etch these into copper sheet and finish by oxidising to bring out the texture of the image. I had several images in mind that I thought would prove suitable and had been in my minds eye for some time. All of the designs I've made thus far have been based on a photograph I took, albeit some of them have ended up very abstract and not obviously image based at all. But this way I know that they're unique and original.


I've always loved daisies and the first image I intended to try etching was one of my daisy photos. This is just a standard lawn daisy photographed in the grass outside my front door. I don't like cutting the grass and getting rid of them, so often leave particularly abundant patches of them to grow unhindered.

I hoped that this particular image had enough contrast and detail that it would be self-evident in a very simplified form and set to work to improve the contrast, reduce the colours of the image and retouch it into a very much stylised graphic format, as shown.


The etching method I'd decided some time ago to work with was one using a pure and saturated salt solution in combination with an electric current from a battery holder. I liked the simplicity of working with household chemicals and whilst it does produce a potentially dangerous solution of copper salts that will need careful disposal, the process itself is pretty innoccuous and I was happy that I could work comfortably with the materials within my domestic work space.

The process necessitates putting the image onto the meticulously prepared (i.e. smooth and very clean) metal surface as a resist - something that will mask the copper where you don't want it etching and leaving spaces where you do want to eat away at the surface. Consequently, the image needs to be worked in negative (and mirrorred), to give rise to the image the correct way round once appearing on the sheet metal surface. Hence my daisy image has been reversed.

As with many jewellery making techniques, meticulous preparation is at the heart of the eventual success - the results are directly proportional to the care taken setting it up - cut corners and you cut quality. And like many techniques, the core of the work is in the preparation, the process itself is relatively easy, but getting to that stage is where the effort lies.

And like many techniques, the methodology often needs fine tuning and honing as you work. It's all very good working from a tutorial - and this one was detailed and extensive - but there's no substitute for hands-on experience and practical problem solving - something you can only really do for yourself. So I knew as I set off to produce my first item that the initial results would not be perfect, in fact, I was lined up for a total fail, as others had said they hadn't done well with this particular technique.

The first etched incarnation of the daisy, which is softer and more granular than I'd intended, but still significantly better than I was expecting.

But despite not working with the ideal materials (I was missing something that I hoped wasn't going to be a deal breaker) and improvising a little, my first etch was better than I'd dared hope. The image had obviously transferred to the metal (using a laser printed original and heat) - which was actually the area where I was improvising and crossing my fingers - and the etch had happened as predicted.

It's funny how past experience continues to inform current work. As a technical illustrator specialising in airbrush work, a technique I often used to transfer line illustrations to board to airbrush them, was to photocopy them and then iron this onto the art board, so I'd already settled on this as a potential transfer method.

From a long time in my past, some technical airbrush illustrations. The top one is the front suspension of an Aston Martin Vantage - which Aston Martin helped me with, I took measurements and reference photographs directly from parts on their shop floor. The second one is an SME tone arm - it resides on our turntable.

Where my print had missed in places, I'd patched it in with Sharpie, one of the recommended techniques, but that proved to be insufficiently resilient and gradually lifted during the etch and left holes in the design which then started to etch too. So the result was a little soft around the edges and had quite a lot of background noise where it should have been clean - see the photo above of the finished pendant.

On subsequent etches I used a metallic Sharpie and that was rather better - nail polish was better still, but hard to apply in small amounts. It was evident that the quality of the transfer of the design to the metal was the really vital stage. It's also vital to cover all of the metal you submerge as anything not protected will etch. I also learned that any duct tape used to cover edges etc. needs to be burnished down tightly, any place where a droplet of etching solution can get inside will also etch.

Digging around on line for methods of transferring my images to the sheet metal (I was trying to avoid the delay and expense of getting some printed circuit board transfer paper, the recommended technique) I found a post in a model makers forum for making printed circuit boards where I think this chap had stumbled upon something that worked, by accident and so I decided it was worth a try as I did have the materials to hand. His recommendation was to use the laser printer, but print onto glossy inkjet photo paper. The glossy coating sticks to the toner too, making the transfer much thicker and with more distinct edges and when done, it lifts off relatively easily after soaking in some nail polish remover (I tried every solvent in the house before I made this particular discovery).

The image transferred to the cleaned copper sheet - you can see from the paper peeled away after transfer that not all of it transferred at the edges. See the finished pendant at the bottom of the article.

It worked incredibly well - the image transferred was crisper, thicker and looked much more resilient, see above. I now had to hold my breath while I waited to see if it stayed stuck to the metal during the etching process. I had visions of it dissolving clean off as I watched.

Take 2 - the initial and cleaned up etch from the better transfer - the edges are crisper and cleaner and the background has remained clean.

The finished pendant from etch no. 2. I cut the sheet to shape and rounded the corners and polished the flat surface, oxidising it to fill in the texture of the etch and only polishing back the top surface.

I was absolutely delighted with the results - a much cripser etch and the areas around the design had remained predominantly clean. I was so encouraged that I went with a much finer design next, with some lettering, to test how much detail would actually show in a sketch-like original. I haven't yet oxidised it to see how good it looks finished, but I was incredibly happy with the results, it had worked rather better than I'd expected. This is my parents' boxer Chelsea and this will go on a keyring for my Mum's birthday. So I have to hope that she doesn't read the blog.

The process to get an image onto metal started with a photograph which was actually the size I have it here. I partially digitised it as a sketch and then hand worked it to bring out more detail and make it a bit more blocky to be more suitable to etch, then it's reversed and mirrored before printing - where your image is white will be etched, so had I used the middle positive image I would have got a raised Chelsea with an etched away background - I wanted the image etching, so had to make a negative and then mirror it to ensure she faced the right way and the writing wasn't backwards.

The initial resist transferred to the sheet metal is on the left - the image area looked clean and detailed and my transfer paper was largely clean, which is a good sign. I blocked over the plain areas I wanted keeping clean with a mask of hand cut duct tape to be on the safe side. The resulting etch on the right - it too will be oxidised to show the detail, which I hope will look like a sketch on the metal.

The finished piece, oxidised and the flat polished surface partially polished back and hanging from
a heavy weight hand made oval jump ring.

My head is now fit to burst with the ideas tumbling over each other in there waiting to see the light. I just need to fine tune my workflow to make it more economic to make things to sell, the method at the moment is a little too work intensive to be profitable.

These are a couple of smaller pendants using the abstract designs I created by coarsely halftoning some photographs - one using a square 'dot' and the other was a linear pattern - the resist for the square one is shown above. I've finished them simply, with a very chunky oval shaped jump ring to keep the costs down by reducing the amount of work I do on them (they're already quite labour intensive) - I like the tube bails I've used recently, but these add to the time I spend on a piece.

Recent work in progress, now completed

I apologise for not making a very meaningful post, but as I'm going to be out of action for a few days, I thought that I'd bring you up to date on some of the work I showed previously in progress. I'm always interested to read other jeweller's methodology when coming to a design, so thought I'd add some background on my own pieces.

Unfortunately some of the pieces I'd like to show you, that are responsible for quite a bit of my time recently, are custom items intended for gifts, so I need to keep them under wraps for the time being, I obviously don't want to spoil any surprises.

I've been doing some work with copper sheet and showed two pendants in their finished but raw metal state. I've now oxidised them and decided upon a final finish.

The pendant and earring set shown below was cut from copper sheet and given a hand finished texture. Then shaped and polished and the smaller pieces drilled for the earwires and a tube bail soldered to the back of the pendant - I wanted to keep the front of it plain without interruption from a jump ring or other bail structure.

Please click on any of the photographs for a larger view.

I gave the upper surfaces a high degree of hand polished shine so that once oxidised, it would take on a nice gunmetal style sheen. I polished the oxidisation back a little from the surface to reveal the texture.

I'd originally intended soldering solid earwire hooks to the back of the earring pieces, but decided at their size, they might hang a little low and without articulation. Coming up to winter when ladies are more likely to wear coats and scarves, it might cause them to get pushed upwards during wear, so I went for a long stright drop earwire through a drilled hole instead.

Seeing them finished this way I know it was the right choice, as they move nicely and the sheen on the surface gives rise to more interest as they jiggle in wear. But I think next time, I'd split the difference and solder a loop to the back of them and then attach that to an earire, to keep the front surface plain, as I'd originally intended - that didn't occur to me until after I'd drilled the holes.


I posted earlier that this particular pendant had proved troublesome - sometimes the plainest looking designs need to the most work to keep them that way. I didn't feel that the resulting finish was up to the standards I am happy with, so this one will be mine. I had given the front surface of the copper a brushed satin finish and wasn't sure whether to oxidise, antique or leave raw. I do love the gunmetal sheen of highly polished copper when fully oxidised, so went with that option, tumbling it extensively to burnish the flat surface. I hand polished the Sterling silver nuggets to contrast against the darker background.

This pendant too has a tube bail soldered on the back and I think I'll probably wear it on my Sterling silver snake chain. I like the simple contemporary lines of it and hope to apply what I learnt in making this one to something similar to sell.


These earrings aren't a new concept for me by any means, I have made several pieces featuring these wrapped copper buds, but a customer wanted something long and dramatic, so these deep teardrop shapes were born - and I made an extra pair for the shop.

I've oxidised the earrings and then polished back just the wrapped areas to accent the texture there. The hammered teardrop loops have been left dark and smooth to contrast the textured details at the bottom. The buds were left a rosy copper and whilst these aren't as red as some I've done, they still have a pink glow to them. I've hung them from wrapped earwires to mirror the texture.

This week I have mostly been photographing copper

There are always two people in every picture: the photographer and the viewer. ~ Ansel Adams

Further to my previous blog about all my recent work in copper, which included some work in progress photos, I'm going to cheat a little and just add a brief post here to update my previous comments and show some photographs of those pieces completed.

I showed this bracelet in its raw copper, post-tumbled state in the earlier blog. It has now been deeply oxidised and further tumbled to give it a lustrous glossy warm gunmetal finish, just with hints of copper showing through on proud surfaces.

I've now managed to clear some of my backlog and have got some of those finished pieces photographed and listed for sale, but I still have many to do - and all the design ideas buzzing around my head refuse to budge until they're made too. My mind works overtime with shapes and techniques desperate to take form in metal and I can't wait to get to my tools sometimes and let the ideas break free and see where it takes me.

A single piece teardrop shaped copper pendant, wire wrapped to hold a deep red dyed coral bead in position. I showed a raw copper version of another pendant of this design and they have both now been antiqued to highlight the texture of the wrapping and coiled bail.

I am aiming to treat myself to a whole day of just making things on Tuesday, as I will have a whole day to myself for the first time in a while - so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that nothing crops up over the weekend to change those plans. I will prepare my work area ready the evening before, wash the breakfast pots on Tuesday morning and then allow myself a whole day of just tinkering. I shall plug in my MP3 player, top up the coffee pot and indulge my creative desires. Bliss.

Antiqued copper and rhyolite (sometimes called Rainforest Jasper because of the earthy tones) earrings made before Easter and finally photographed.

One pair in a series of hammered oval earrings with a variety of finishes and metals. I took photographs of these whilst away over Easter, when stuck inside during a heavy downpour and found the forgotten photos with great glee this afternoon.

And sometimes, you see the item in a photograph and realise that it just doesn't work as well as you hoped. I was really happy with this swirled copper ring wrapped with silver - it actually looks really nice in person, but in the photographs, the antiquing looks scruffy and rough and the wrapping looks loose and undisciplined. So I shall have to give it some more attention if it's to look decent in the 'larger-than-life' photographs. It's one of the inherent perils of showing small items of jewellery like this, they end up being shown somewhat larger than they are in reality and it really highlights any shortcomings in your workmanship.

This week I have mostly been working in copper

“The world is an old woman, and mistakes any gilt farthing for a gold coin; whereby being often cheated, she will thenceforth trust nothing but the common copper” Thomas Carlyle, Victorian essayist.

Hammered copper, heavily antiqued, spiral link bracelet.
Please click on any of the photographs for a larger view.

The last couple of weeks have been hectic - an assortment of commissions to complete, work commitments, domestic dramas, our visiting son (I'd like to think he comes home from university to catch up with his Mum, but in reality he was only availing himself of my fast broadband connection, as the dent in my bandwidth allowance will testify) and even some time away over Easter.

So if anyone happened to be so devoid of entertainment they were monitoring my publicly visible work rate, they'd perhaps consider me tardy of late - I haven't seemingly had much to show for the long hours and exhaustion levels.

I spent a lot of time before we went away for Easter in preparing things to take with me to work on; part-made components to finish, components that I could make into ideas I had etc. - all in case of bad weather and the need to find things to do. I had enough materials with me to make a hundred pieces of jewellery. All I eventually managed was this necklace (with matching earrings) and another pair of earrings. Antiqued copper and green glass.

I quite liked the smooth look of the back of the antiqued bracelet above, where polishing off the oxidisation, left a pattern of colours on the smooth copper, from bright peach to a deep gunmetal type blue/grey. So I made another version without the hammered texture and will give this the same colour finish. I sometimes just like to enjoy them in their raw state before I give them their final colour.

A spiral wrapped Botswana agate bracelet in it's raw copper just-tumbled state, which has since been deeply oxidised and extensively tumbled to a deep gunmetal warm grey.

But behind the scenes, like a little hammer-wielding gnome, I have been quietly (not that my hammering can ever be claimed to be quiet) producing several new pieces. But the making of the jewellery is the fun bit - that's where I find my joy, peace from the world and my personal satisfaction - I get so embroiled with the details of shapes and the engineering of making things work properly that the world just passes me by and I often only come to my senses when the growling in my belly reminds me that I really should have had lunch several hours ago.

Hammered and elongated soldered chain link earrings, with rosy copper molten buds.

But once complete, after enjoying it for a short while on my own, I must present the result of my efforts to the world. I really can't expect pieces to sell if they're still sitting on my work bench unseen. And this is the part, like most artisan sellers and self-representing artists, that I find most tedious, time-consuming and plain disagreeable.

A pendant in progress, which has since been antiqued. I love to see raw shiny just-tumbled copper, so often take WIP photos at this stage. Just because the colour is so pretty.

As someone who has listed photography as a passion for an alarmingly large number of years, I do not find photographing my work to be in the least bit enjoyable. And despite having now done quite a lot of it and to have gradually honed my workflow to be about as efficient as I think I can get, it still seemingly takes an inordinate amount of time - far longer than it feels like it should or I'm happy to give it. And don't even get me started on the process of measuring everything, working out a price and writing appropriate descriptions. I get through it by issuing myself with incentives - if I finish listing two items, I can work on the bracelet I'd started etc.

Large Serpentine beads spiral wrapped with copper into this bracelet with hand crafted hook and an adjustable chain closure and Aventurine dangle. The copper has been antiqued.

So, in the purely selfish interest of trying to make it look like I have actually done something of late, I present some of my latest pieces and the first photographs I've taken of them. I've also included some work in progress photos (WIP) as I often take photographs for my own reference and they don't otherwise ever see the light of day.

Only another 25 pieces and several hours wrangling photo props and cameras and then manipulating images left to go!

Bringing a piece of metal to life - part 2

Work in Progress (WIP):

There has been much discussion recently in various on-line venues - and directly with customers - about making buyers aware just how much you put into a piece to distinguish them from 'assembled from components' or mass produced items. Sometimes it isn't obvious from item descriptions which of these it is and your only guide may be the price. It's important to me that buyers should be able to make that distinction and make an informed purchasing decision.

The finished bracelet with my own toggle clasp - the design and engineering of which was quite a learning process.
Please click the photographs to see a larger version of them.

The idea of seeing pieces part-made and in progress, or studio photographs, appealed to buyers - to reinforce the wholly hand crafted nature of the work. Those that choose to buy hand-crafted work rather than off the peg on the high street do so because they like to feel a direct connection with the artisan that made their new piece. They seemingly enjoy getting to know the artist and about their work and are fascinated with the work that goes into making a piece directly from scratch from raw materials and enjoy seeing in-progress photographs, something I aim to do more of in future.

As someone who tries to make every element of a piece of jewellery myself - from earwires, headpins and clasps - it is important to me that potential buyers are aware of the many stages of this process and how this informs the price of a piece.

Hence I decided to chronicle this particular project in photographs as I worked. I did an earlier blog on bringing a piece of metal to life, but only retrospectively, without the benefit of in-progress photos, but in view of recent discussions, I took photos as I worked on this particular piece.

I actually made two bracelets largely the same at the same time, so the photos are from both pieces and the first incarnation of it had a different toggle design. But as often happens when working on a piece, the design gradually evolves as practical considerations are addressed and problems overcome. Sometimes you can only hone a design once it takes on 3 dimensions - you need to have it in your hands in solid form to test what works - and just as often, what doesn't. In this case, the first toggle looked pretty, but didn't work as well as I hoped. More of that below.

The links and clasp sections are hand formed and sawn from raw wire stock.

The links start life coiled as rings, sawn apart, cleaned and closed ready to solder closed. After soldering, they must be pickle-cleaned to remove the firescale and molten flux.

The circular rings are then hand shaped to the long ovals I chose for this design.

The links start as circular, are stretched to ovals, then the sides straightened a little more.

The links of the bracelet are hammered slightly for both stability of the metal and appearance.

The chain is assembled and all the links soldered closed.

The final stage is hand filing, shaping and polishing, for which there is no substitute for getting your hands dirty. Despite the messiness of it, it's a very satisfying process and one that I don't mind. It's lovely to see the beauty and colour of the metal emerge after seeing how rough it looks in progress.

As you can see above from the Work In Progress (WIP) photos, there are many stages to creating something of this nature from raw materials, especially if you want to make something unique and ensure that all components balance and work well together and give rise to a piece that will withstand wear and last for many years to come.


The design of the toggle:

Designing a piece isn't just about drawing pretty sketches of the finished article - of which I do plenty and have pages of ideas yet to see metal - it's about engineering too. A piece of jewellery has to be attractive, but work and be wearable in a practical sense too. You don't want sections snagging on clothing, earrings trapping hair behind a loose edge and functional areas like clasps - especially on bracelets - must be fasten-able with one hand and not come undone in wear.

So the lion's share of my initial time on this bracelet was in designing the clasp. I wanted to make my own toggle from scratch - not just use a bought component - and yet it has to sit easily with the design of the rest of the piece - you want shapes to mirror the design and be balanced with the piece as a whole - the clasp shouldn't be an afterthought, but an integral and important aspect of the design. My scrap pile is a little larger as a result of this particular design process. Sometimes your first idea is spot on, sometimes they need a lot of snagging and trial and error. Hopefully that effort will result in a better final result for your customer.

A clasp has to be an integral part of the design, not an afterthought. I try to match my closures to the style and weight of the piece, to reflect the shapes and yet work well in a practical sense too.

For this copper long link chain bracelet, I used the basic toggle design principle from a project in a book I have from the library and when finished, it simply came undone too easily in wear and clearly that was unacceptable. I did wonder if it might be like the old joke about how many rolls of wallpaper a neighbour said he used to decorate his lounge - "yes, I had 3 rolls left over too" - I wondered if I told the designer that it didn't work, they'd say "no, mine didn't work either".

I liked how this toggle looked, but it simply didn't work well in practice. It fastened well, but wouldn't stay that way!

Even commercially made toggles don't always work, I have several that I've bought that are either too tight or fiddly to fasten one-handed, or come undone too easily and cause the bracelet to fall off. So toggle design is seemingly especially critical in terms of size and shapes - where the hooks and rings I do more often are much more forgiving. I found very little information about the basic engineering of a toggle to guide me, tutorials either give exact sizes for the particular design, or skirt the issue entirely and must give rise to a lot of unsuccessful results and frustrated makers.

In this case, I wanted the toggle to reflect the long links of the chain, but in practical terms, it had to be wide enough to let the toggle bar and the first links of the chain adjacent to it to pass through to fasten it, so in order to make it wide enough to allow this, it would have needed to be much longer than it is shown if I wanted to keep the same proportions as the chain links. Which would then require the toggle bar to be much longer too in proportion - longer than I decided would look nice or be comfortable to wear. So I compromised on widening the loop slightly in order to keep it to a more modest loop length and to balance overall with the weight of the rest of the chain.

The toggle bar itself needed much consideration too. It needs to sit nicely against the loop, hopefully as flat as possible, but also be easy to manipulate when fastening one-handed - and remain securely fastened and also securely attached to the chain itself.


So this too went through several incarnations. In this instance, I worked on several versions of both elements of the clasp until I was entirely satisfied they were just what I wanted - and now that I've done that process, it's a design I will no doubt use often - and an important stage for me is in taking detailed notes and measurements as I work for future reference. But they are vitally important learning processes and sometimes you have to get it wrong to learn why it doesn't work and to learn how to overcome those important practical considerations. I spent more time on this project than I'd intended, but the learning process was well worth it to me and I hope it reflects in the quality of the final result.

I think I prefer this sort of practical lesson to just being told how to do it - one of the advantages of being entirely self-taught and working independently.