brooch Ebony Madagasccar, Bocote, Brass, Pyrite splinters, Shellac, Green Fluorite handmade, Copper, nickelsilver, epoxy, Size4in

Klunker

 

custom made pendant
Nugold, hand made Afghanistan Lapis lazuli, Garnet 10mm, Amber 4mm, Onyx 18mm, Rosewood, Copper

Rosewood and metal brooch with Shellac flakes

brooch brass, Rosewood, Nickelsilver, aluminum,epoxy, enamel powder, garnet10mm,

amber4mm,onyx3mm, Mother of Pearl 3mm, Shellac flakes

Rosewood is hard and dense, but not as hard, dense and oily as other woods like Ebony and Cocobolo. It is relatively easy to carve with a thin cutting disc for metals and with steel burrs.

meteorite ring campo del cielo with Lapis lazuli and Amber

custom ring stainless steel, welding steel, brazed brass inlay, lapis lazuli 3mm, amber 4mm, Shellac flakes, epoxy,enamel powder, meteorite Campo del Cielo

"The Campo del Cielo refers to a group of iron meteorites or to the area where they were found situated on the border between the provinces of Chaco and Santiago del Estero, 1,000 kilometers (620 mi) northwest of Buenos Aires, Argentina. The crater field covers an area of 3×20 kilometers and contains at least 26 craters, the largest being 115×91 meters. The craters' age is estimated as 4,000–5,000 years. The craters, containing iron masses, were reported in 1576, but were already well known to the aboriginal inhabitants of the area. The craters and the area around contain numerous fragments of an iron meteorite. The total weight of the pieces so far recovered exceeds 100 tonnes, making the meteorite the heaviest one ever recovered on Earth. The largest fragment, consisting of 37 tonnes, is the second heaviest single-piece meteorite recovered on Earth, after the Hoba meteorite.^[1]"

^(wikipedia)

^{http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campo_del_Cielo} 

Shellac is a resin secreted by the female lac bug, on trees in the forests of India and Thailand. It is processed and sold as dry flakes, which are dissolved in ethyl alcohol to make liquid shellac, which is used as a brush-on colorant, food glaze and wood finish. Shellac functions as a tough all-natural primer, sanding sealant, tannin-blocker, odour-blocker, stain, and high-gloss varnish. Shellac was once used in electrical applications as it possesses good insulation qualities and it seals out moisture. Phonograph (gramophone) records were also made of it during the pre-1950s, 78-rpm recording era.
Shellac is one of the few historically appropriate finishes (including casein paint, spar varnishes, boiled linseed oil and lacquer) for early 20th-century hardwood floors, and wooden wall and ceiling paneling.
From the time it replaced oil and wax finishes in the 19th century, shellac was one of the dominant wood finishes in the western world until it was replaced by nitrocellulose lacquer in the 1920s and 1930s.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shellac
 

Cocobolo wood brooch

brooch Cocobolo wood,nugold,nickelsilver, brass,copper,aluminum,glas

s gem,Carnelian7mm,epoxy,petrified wood,enamel powder

this wood is very dense and hard and oily, even more than ebony. Dust should not be inhaled when working on it.
It is wood, but it behaves almost like a metal in some ways. Hard steel burrs, grinding stones, fiberglass enforced wheels and diamond discs are necessary to carve it. Cutting big pieces works best with a big metal saw. Files get clogged easily because it is so oily. Large amounts can be removed with a very coarse file.
It can be polished like a metal with polishing compounds and takes a very high shine.

cold enamel inlay steel ring

stainless steel, nugold, brass, epoxy, enamel powder,crushed black jasper, ring size 10

wood and metal brooch

brooch Rose Wood, Nickelsilver, petrified wood crushed,lapis lazuli crushed,Shellac pieces,epoxy,pens, acrylic, brass,Heatite crushed and hand cut stone

I tried some things on this one. New for me is the use of wood combined with metal in a sort of a big bezel. I also did some carving on the wood.

Nanntan meteorite steel ring

 

stainless steel, welding steel, meteorite pieces Nantan, epoxy, lapis lazuli 4mm, red shellac, ring size 9.5

Iron from the earth and from behind Mars together in a ring.

the Shellac is under the epoxy in the inlay and gives it a slightly dark red shimmer. It has a color similar to garnet.

This ring belongs to the "Cozmic Blues Collection"

https://sites.google.com/site/thecozmicbluescollection/ 

custom made copper ring

copper 16 ga, ring size 8, Lapis lazuli 10mm

see options for custom made rings at

http://www.wolfgangschweizer.com/artforsale.php

(scroll down on destination page)

copper and brass ring with inlay

ring copper,brass,silver,epoxy,enamel, spinel3mm  ring size 8

ring Laucherthal

  welding steel hammered, stainless steel inside ring, eopxy, Bean ore from my hometown Laucherthal in Germany (thanks to my parents for sending it!), crushed hematite iron ore 
ring size 10

I will offer a new kind of custom rings on my webpage soon.
People can send me personal stuff to embed in their new ring.

Bohnerz, Bean Ore (limonite) from Germany
Around the town where I grew up you can find limonite (Ochre)  in form of small balls everywhere on the fields. You just need to bow down and collect it fro the surface of the earth. The Celtic people living in the area fro around 800 BC on already used this iron ore, and they exported the iron they made from it to Rome and Greece. Greek pottery was found on the fields around a big old Celtic city. The Romans later used the ore also, and when they were gone, the Germanic Alemans did the same. Later the prince of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen founded one of the first steel mills with a furnace there, and the town growing around it was called Laucherthal after the river Lauchert (1708 AC). The former steel mill still exists. It produces high tech metal casting and other stuff now.

rich low brass and stainless steel ring with azurite inlay

rich low brass, stainless steel, epoxy, enamel powder, yellow brass, crushed azurite
size 8

I choose stainless steel for the inside ring for stability reasons

stainless steel and copper ring with epoxy cold enamel and stone inlay

stainless steel, copper, silver wire, epoxy, enamel, Swarovski crystals, crushed lapis lazuli,garnet and black jasper
ring size 6.75

brooch in style of epoxy painting and ring with epoxy and stone inlay

 41-brooch nickelsilver, red brass, copper and aluminum embossed, epoxy, enamel, Swarovski crystals, green marble hand cut and painted
pin on back

I used the same techniques as I use for my epoxy paintings
https://sites.google.com/site/resinpaintings/

I made a test ring to check if the epoxy inlay technique can be used in future for making more rings or if it is only good for brooches and necklaces. If the ring doesn`t get wrecked at work for a few days, I suppose it is stable enough.
 
copper, rich low brass, epoxy, black enamel powder, crushed marble and gold calcite
ring size 10

brazed ring with epoxy inlay

 welding steel-brazed brass, cooper, steel parts-Amber4mm, crushed lapis lazuli epoxy inlay, ring size 7.25

 I used steel as bottom plate for brazing the other metals on, because the ring has to be sturdy. The epoxy inlay with the crushed lapis lazuli would crack if the ring gets deformed.

 I don`t know up to now how durable such epoxy inlays are. I might make another ring and carry it around myself at work for a while.
If the ring is only used for non work activities I guess there will be no problem, as epoxy is used in jewelry making as one of the strongest adhesives.

 in this picture the "marbling" of the composite metal shows. I put copper parts, brass parts and steel parts on a steel plate. Then I brazed everything together (I heated up everything very high with a MAP gas torch, put a salt as flux on it and melted a part of a brass rod onto the whole thing, until everything was covered). Later I had to file it down to make it even.
Problem is, that it is not completely possible to avoid small holes between the metals. These come from the vaporizing flux, which produces gas, that can get captured in the melted metal. Later you have small holes in the piece of jewelry. These have to be grinded out.
Maybe heating it up higher and longer will help avoiding the holes.

mixed metals brazed ring

I tried something new with this one. I cut pieces of copper, brass and steel onto a steel sheet. Then I brazed everything together with brass. After that I filed and grinded the surface flat. Then I made a ring of this metal combination. It is the outside ring. The inside ring was soldered on. It is brass to avoid rusting of the steel (which is the bottom layer of the outside ring) on the finger.
The outside ring shows a shimmering of all the colors of the metals that were used.
I also tried to do a rudimentary form of Damascene inlay. The two copper bars left side from the Spinel were set into undercut space on the outside ring. Then the copper wire was hammered into the undercut space. No solder holds the copper in the space.

Damascene inlay:
http://www.philamuseum.org/booklets/7_43_80_1.html


Ring redone:
I removed the epoxy with the red enamel in it: