[Jewelry making - Article 00219] - Re: [Orchid] Anticlastic Raising Question

[Les Brown]

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Alburn,

    You can, in fact, do a simple anticlastic bracelet, and even a
    closed "tube" bracelet, by soldering the ends of your blank together.
     You can look at one I produce (F001) under "forgings" at my website:
    www.goldwork.com. 

    The basic anticlastic form existed in metalsmithing before the new
    anticlastic lexicon and tool box were created by Heikki Seppa.  The
    technique was known to our smithing forbears as "swedging".  The
    form as a bracelet is most easily achieved by either soldering the
    ends of the blank together, or by inserting a bridge piece of less
    precious metal, which effectively binds the ends with the bracelet
    already to size - no reshaping after cutting the bridge out. 

    The resulting ring is then worked into a series of increasingly deep
    "saddle" grooves cut into a wooden, delrin, or steel mandrel.  The
    bracelet mentioned above goes through 4 saddles.  Using a long pein
    hammer with a fairlly large radius allows you to sink the metal by
    degrees without stretching or seriously marking the metal.   

    Be advised that frequent reshaping on a tapered mandrel with a long
    pein delrin or wooden mallet is necessary to get rid of the initial
    kinks which form.  Once the basic saddle shape is set, however, it is
    smooth sailing the rest of the way. 

    If you need to stretch an area go to a steel mandrel with steel
    hammers. To compress a portion, use steel against wood or delrin.  

    Once the sides have turned up vertical you can continue to close it
    into a tube by hammering from the outside on the edge, driving each
    towards the center, just as in making a length of tubing. 

    When working in 14k gold, many annealings are necessary as the metal
    hardens quickly. 

    You can make your own mandrels using maple or delrin dowel and
    cutting the saddles with files and a set of rasp burs designed for
    use in your 3/8" power drill.  Most large hardware stores carry these
    burs. 

    Happy swedging, 

Les Brown
 

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