Blood, Sweat and Tears... My Experience at Harold Studio

June 17, 2014

Ahhh... the infamous 'pebble ring', or as I like to call it - the 'blood, sweat and tears' ring.

We learned a very cool technique in jewelry class this week, where you melt your metal into a bunch of little balls. You then proceed to solder all these tiny balls onto your base in several different attempts. In between each solder attempt, you have to clean your metal back up, because when you solder it gets incredibly dirty. Dirty metal won't solder, oh how I wish it would!

You will drop these little balls, you will loose a few balls, you will make more balls.... finally after they are all soldered onto your base it is time to hammer them flat. This process will more than likely pop half of the balls off (see photo), which at that time you will go back to step two and solder them back on again.

This went on for awhile, and it wasn't just me... it was everyone in my class (which made me a feel a little better, I must admit). After the final round of solder / hammer / clean / solder / hammer / clean was done, I did a happy dance and proceeded to attach the base of my ring to the band I had made earlier. Out came the liver of sulfur to darken the entire surface, and then I polished it up - Viola! I am now the proud wearer of a pebble ring... a.k.a. my "blood, sweat & tears" ring.