The Frugal Silversmith

"Don't waste anything!"

That's what my Mom, the teacher, would say. She saved egg cartons, toilet paper rolls, styrofoam of every description--anything that could be used by her young students for art projects. Clothing passed from our neighbor's daughter to me, to my younger sister, and then to our cousins (if they weren't ruined). Mom considered wasting resources a sin. Literally.

So what do I do with pieces of silver left over from other projects? Use them! Sometimes, the accidental, zen-like quality of a "leftovers" creation is more interesting than an intentional design. And silver is an expensive medium, not one you want to throw away casually. Some businesses buy leftover silver (and silver dust--you should see how much dust I've saved over the years). But they don't pay anything close to what I buy it for. So I'd rather use it.

First, I search through my leftovers to see what might work with a certain piece of glass. For this project, I also had a carved bone, crystal and turquoise necklace that didn't have a pendant, because a customer had bought the glass and rejected the "chain."  The chunky turquoise pieces prevented any of my already made pendants from sliding into place, so I needed to make something with a big loop if I were going to get any use out of the necklace.

This morning, I sifted out some oddly shaped silver and rearranged it several times to see what would work. Several of the cool leftovers--wave-shaped pieces that I had melted or otherwise ruined over the years--just didn't fit. I really wanted to use the waves, and a snaky piece of hammered wire that looked great on the glass, but they didn't gel with the emerging pendant.

I sawed off some jutting points and joined the frame with hard solder. Hard solder melts at a higher temperature than easy solder. Using it on the frame made it possible to do the four additional solders without melting the joints on the frame.

It needed to be drilled so I could make the all-important large hanging loop. Then there were hours of filing, soldering, and shaping the metal with an 80-grit radial bristle on my handy dandy flex shaft grinder. I usually wear a mask and magnifying lenses while grinding. My husband says I look like Darth Vader.

Finally, I set the glass in the prongs. In this case, it didn't fit the way I had intended, so I turned it upside down. That worked.

Now, I have an odd but oddly lovely necklace to offer my customers. Did I design it? Yes and no. I rode the flow, and it worked.  This time.