FAQ;

Q: What is depletion gilding?

A: Deletion gilding is the method to eliminate copper from the suface of sterling silver.

Heat up the sterling silver with brushy flame and oxidize the copper on surface. Then cool it down slowly because it produses more oxidized copper.

Then pickle it to wash out the oxidized copper.

Rpeat this process several times until the sterling silver doesn't get balck under the flame anymore.

The video shows the process only once but I did it several times in fact.

Q: What kind of double sided tape do you use?

I make jewelry in various styles and motives.

Some of them show up again and again in my shop as a different piece.

Thistle is one of my favorite motives and I have made several pieces.

These are my Thistle Jewelry Collection.

Most of them are fortunately sold but there are some pieces that are still available.

Please check out my shop.

And this doesn't repesent a thistle directly but got inspired.

Thank you for reading.

This is a small tip for you to clean the pitch quickly.

After you did a pitch work, you need to remove it from the piece. Usually, I think, you dip it in some thinner and leave it for a while. But it takes long time. This is my trick to do it quickly. Prepare the piece, some lacquer thinner(or acetone or whatever organic solvent) in a bottle, and a super sonic washer.

This is the making process of "Art Nouveau style openwork akoya pendant necklace"

As usual I draw some sketches first. This is the final one. At this point a round openwork component behind the center pearl is geometric. But I changed my mind soon. The sketches are always black and white so colors are not expressed here. But of course there are colors in my mind. I think the center openwork should be black and the others are all gold. So I have to make the openwork component separately and fix it at the final step. Again I will use a support ring and rivets.

This is the making process of  "Amethyst Art Nouveau style thistle pendant".

Everytime I start from drawing some rough sketches like this. they don't need to be precise because I make the piece by myself and the details often change accidentally. Of course when it's a custom order and I need to show my customer how the piece will be, I draw better sketches.

As usual I make the bezel and the fundamental frame. The reason why I make a frame is that I will insert a Keum Boo panel in it and fix it by a support frame later.

This is the making process photos of "Art Nouveau style golden blossoms necklace"

First I make the outer frame as usual. This frame is made of two layers of sterling silver sheet.

One is 07mm thick and the other is 1.2mm thick. They are soldered and filed. The smoth rounded surface is very important for this design.

The "wall" is built along the edges. The height should be a bit higher than the total of the support ring height and Keum Boo panel thickness.

Here it is 3mm. 2mm high ring and 0.7mm thick panel.

Here is the process of the "Blue labradorite thistle pendant"

First I make the bezel and the foundational frame. The edges of the frame are rounded because I will apply chisel lines on them.

I saw the leaves out of sterling silver sheet.

Then I fix them on a pich bowl to engrave the veins.

By the way black pitch is very common in Japan.

The stone bezel is fixed to the frame previously.