The best laid plans

I look forward to Friday, it is the start of my weekend! I get to spend the day playing, reading, dancing, and cuddling. Eventually all that activity wears out the little fella and he goes down for a sleep and I race out to the workshop and work on my jewellery.

This morning started well. I prepared a few earrings for an order and then set about working on my smokey quartz cocktail ring which I first showed you here in April. I have been working away at it in the background while producing some pieces that are quicker to make.

Now the hard work had all been done, the setting was finished and soldered onto the shank and it was time to cleanup. Due to the intricate nature of this ring I expected cleanup to be fiddly and time consuming.


The first step was to cut out the portion of the ring shank underneath the setting - done!


The next is to file... and file... and file....

But sometimes things just don't go according to plan. And a fracture on one of the claws means that they have to be removed, they have become brittle and overworked when soldering the setting to the ring.

Now for the god news, I resited the urge to take a hammer to it and relieve some frustration! To remove the claws I have re-run the solder.

I have to start over and reattach the setting and new claws. On that unfortunate note I have decided to call it a day.


It is a bit sad that I have come from being so close to finished to this point, but these things happen, this is not the first piece that I have had this sort of issue with, and it wont be the last. I might get started again on this ring over the weekend, or I might put it on the back burner and work on something else.