The Sun God Has Risen

At last, I have finished the necklace ‘Homage to the Sun God‘, see earlier post.

The final stages included soldering the rays to the surface of the Sun – ironically you seemed to need temperatures that normally are only found at the centre of the Sun to get the things to bond!

The problem being that the disc is made from thick sterling silver and so was acting like a heat sink, allowing the heat to flow away from the solder. Took some doing, but eventually the solder flowed and the rays became part of the Sun.

In the meantime, I also created a bezel cup in which to sit the heliodor beryl gemstone. I decided that I would sit the beryl unconventionally, upside down, to have the effect of the sun’s flames coming out from the belly of the Sun. The bezel cup was slightly sunk into the Sun disc to house the beryl.

After that the next most difficult part was to clean up the disc, as I couldn’t tumble it, as the bezel housing for he beryl is quite delicate, so it became very laborious and took a number of goes with varying grades of wet and dry and then finally very fine wire wool and soap, to make the Sun shine.

I then drilled a hole into the Sun disc from which the Sun hangs via a silver hook to the chain.

After that the beryl was fitted into the cup and the necklace was complete and the Sun finally rose.

Here are a few images of it. I’ll be listing it on Etsy and Folksy very soon. What’s particularly nice about this necklace is that it can be word with the Sun pendant or without a chain on its own. So you can have your crazy pendant days or your much quieter chain only days.

Homage to the Sun God

me wearing the Sun God

A Different View of the Sun God Necklace

Homage to the Sun God: Progress Update

So, now I have calmed down after my paranormal, necklace, happening – YIKES!!!

I will attempt to show you where I am with the latest necklace.

Homage to the Sun God, So far:

This has been a big project.

Firstly I had to create that spooky chain, which took ages, as I had to make all of the links by hand (which really hurts your fingers, as you wrap the silver wire round the mandrel – I’ll do a video of making a silver link at some point and you will see the pain in my eyes, if anyone knows a better way, please let me know!).

Then each link had to be connected and soldered. I did it in two parts as it is quite long and needed to be tumbled after soldering and pickling (more about pickling later for those who don’t know what it is).

Once it was shiny and clean and connected together it was ready – and here it is almost finished and awaiting its final execution (or is that sacrifice…)

This picture was the only one I could get without it ‘shining’, it still looks like gold but it is actually sterling silver (oh crikey is it the influence of the sun god again – arghhhh…). I think it would be nice in gold but I’d only do that on commission.

The Sun God Chain

The next part I had to make was the ‘sun’ itself. This comprises several parts:

1. The main sun disc,

2. The bezel setting for the beryl which makes up the heart of the sun

3. The Beryl sun heart itself

4. The sun rays

The Sun Disc:

The main Sun Disc was cut out using a machine saw, as it is made from pretty thick sterling  silver sheet. It had to be further cutout in the middle to hold the Beryl gemstone heart.

I made the bezel setting for the Beryl heart using sterling silver for the base and bezel silver strip to contain the Beryl.

I then had to solder the bezel setting into the heart of the sun disc – here it is at that stage (looks a bit of a mess as it has just been pickled):

Sun disc early stages

Pickling, by the way, is what you do after soldering to remove ‘fire stain’. The pickling solution is a weak acid solution (such as 10% sulphuric acid) and it is heated in that for about 15 minutes or more until any stains from the soldering process are removed  – the stains being copper impurities in the sterling silver.

Once the soldering of the bezel setting and pickling was done, I then moved onto making the rays.

The Rays:

Each ray is made from different size sterling silver wire lengths. Each length of wire is held over a micro soldering torch until a ball is formed. The rays are then pickled and each is hammered out so that they have a flattened end – makes it a little easier to solder onto the sun disc.

This is what the pendant will look like with the rays attached (again, it’ll need to be tumbled and cleaned up at the very end):

Sun disc with rays

The Final Stage:

I now have to finish the piece by soldering the rays onto the sun disc – this is really difficult, sounds easy but it isn’t and the reason is that the sun disc is a large piece of silver and it acts like a heat sink, pulling all the heat away from the solder, so that the solder can’t flow and fix the rays to the disc. I need help with this part as someone will have to hold the rays in the right position while I try and heat from below and above to get the temperature high enough in the right places. I did consider kiln soldering it, but the rays are heavier at one end and might not sit correctly in the kiln.

Once the rays are in place, all that is left to do, is fix the Beryl in its cup, attach the sun disc to the necklace (oh I have to drill 3 holes in the top of the disc to do this – I want the attached part of the necklace to mimic the rays below) and hey presto, the Sun God lives…

Here  it is with the Beryl in situ and the chain above to give you a bit of an idea of what it will look like once completed.

I’ll post the finished piece on this blog soon!

Almost completed Sun God necklace