I made these bracelets as Christmas gifts. Since I was working 18 to 20 hour days for three solid months before Christmas, I had not put much thought into gifts. Both of my daughters, who live on the other side of the country, were going to be home and my wife had been very patient and supportive during the long aerospace contract I had been working. I wanted to make them all something nice but I was, as they say, “running out of air speed, altitude, and ideas” quickly.
The narrowest bracelet was the first one I made for my wife. It is quite heavy and the basic form is rolled out of fairly thick sheet sterling. I then silver soldered the decorative wire borders on each edge of the band. I usually do this assembly flat and then bend the bracelet to shape. However, with this one, I bent the band to shape then fitted and soldered the decorative borders.
(As an aside, when one has three women in the family and makes custom jewelry for them, one best be prepared to make three of everything. The concept of making them each something different only lasts until they each see what the other has been given. I ended up making two more of these heavy, narrow bracelets !)
The largest bracelet is made from an antique (~ late 1800’s) sterling silver, British, napkin ring. My wife had seen it and liked the pattern. I bought it (when she wasn’t looking), cut it through in one place and reformed it into a bracelet. However, the cut edges were thin and sharp so I had to solder on a decorative edge piece to strengthen the thin edge and have enough material to polish to a smooth, rigid edge. You can’t see it in the photos on the blog, but I used the same decorative silver border wire to beef up the cut edges that I used on the narrow bracelet. If anyone is interested, I can post a picture of the back of that bracelet.
The usual method of making pierce work, like the two matching bracelets is, as one might imagine, very time consuming and labor intensive. There are no short cuts that I am aware of. I made my Mother a similar bracelet many years ago in 18 karat gold. I laid out the design on a piece of rolled plate with a scribe, drilled holes where required to effect the piercing, and then spent days and days with a jeweler’s saw and custom shaped needle files cleaning up the outline of the design. Then the entire surface was sculpted with gravers. (To make multiples of this type of work, I vulcanize a rubber mold of the original, pump wax patterns, and centrifugal cast the duplicates.)
In this case, I didn’t have the time to make the bracelets the old fashioned way for my two daughters. I happened to find two matching, vintage (~ early 1900’s) cast silver napkin rings. (They are identical down to some minor forming imperfections, so you can tell they were cast from an original pattern.) As with the large bracelet, I split the rings, soldered a sterling silver reinforcement onto each of the cut edges, and reformed the rings into bracelets. The rings each had a blank diamond shaped plate on one side and an engraved matching plate on the other. I split them down the center of the engraved plate so that I had a blank plate in the middle of the bracelet on which I could engrave my daughter’s initials.
All of these bracelets were easy to assemble. The one my Dad made for my Mother many years ago (and that I added some scrimshaw to) was much harder to make. You can see it here:
http://contemporarymakers.blogspot.com/2012/07/sterling-silver-cuff-bracelet-by.htmlMy Dad is in his late 80’s and I still learn a lot sitting at his bench and watching him work. I have been watching and learning from him for 60 years and he still amazes me with the skill and the ideas that patiently flow through his hands and into his work.
