Silver Diploma - Term 1 Part 1
Sorry for not being more present here and keeping you updated better with my progress through my first term on the silver diploma, but it has been a bit of a juggle working, family time, social media and learning new skills on the diploma.
Term 1 has been a mixture of emotions, excitement, anxiety and also frustration. I was fairly relaxed and confident starting the diploma as week one was all about saw piercing and I had already done this before so I wasn't too worried.
Week 2 was all about experimenting with texture which was great fun because I got to hammer the hell out of pieces of metal which is always fun, and I also used this week to finally play with my rolling mill that I have had for a few months but in all honesty I was too scared to use.
What can I say about Week 3, ARGHHHHH mostly. Well that was a very frustrating week, but with perseverance and support from my lovely husband (he did a lot of bedtime routines this week so I could practice and work out what I was doing wrong), he even had a go at soldering too to try and help me work out why it wasn't working. In the end I got there and the sense of achievement and elation I felt when it worked and it worked again consistently; was the best feeling ever.
Week 4,
The ‘Kite project’ or also known as the ‘jigsaw project’. This was another arghh week. After thinking you have mastered the soldering from last week, you soon that actually maybe you haven't. Soldering different metals brings with it different issues. This project also makes you question your week 1 saw piecing ability too. The task was to solder together 4 pieces of metal, 2 x copper and 2 x brass. Simple hey, no. These metals heat up to different temperatures which causes issues for getting the solder to flow as both pieces need to be the correct temperature for the solder to flow evenly and where you want it to.
I got there in the end.
Week 5 Doming and spinner ring.
Again I had dabbled with these techniques prior to the course. I had made a copper spinner ring as part of one of the Jewellers Academy month challenges earlier in the year but again working with silver and copper are different and the solder flows differently due to the temperatures that each metal needs to reach for solder to flow.
Well done and thank you if you made it all the way through.
I hope you will join me for part 2 which will follow shortly…………