Never Give Up

This is a piece I have worked on off and on during the holiday.  Things don't always go right for me either.  This is no where near finished.  I just took down the sides with a foredom and now I can polish the little bugger and get the stone set.  Whew, that's all I can say after all the trials with it.

Let's talk about the never give up part.  This was the piece I was working on when the torch handle blew out.  BAH!  Compared to the frustration of the bezel on this one the torch was NOTHING.  Lest you think soldering always goes easy let me tell you I fried the first bezel - I melted the edge of it.  Since part of it was soldered down I had to use the saw and cut it off.  I redid the base plate and soldered up a new bezel.  I generally do not have this kind of issue.

Okey Dokey - bezel #2 went down and then zip zap.  I drew the torch across it and cut this nice slice with fire right down it.  I'm not much a tantrum kind of person but WTF crossed my mind.

This was getting bad - I cut it off one more time and this time I caught the base plate with the saw and put one to many score marks in it so that was now a loss as well.

Right after that the torch hose blew.  That was it for that day.  I figured the way it was going the next thing that would happen is I'd trip on the step and break the other ankle  Enough of that I thought, got a glass on wine and turned on the TV.  I kept mulling the whole thing over in my head.  I had this base plate I couldn't use again.  That was bad enough.  But, I also had this filigree and a silver ball I had patterned soldered down to it.  They were too cool to waste but they were on that plate - dang it all.  Have another sip of wine...

So, there it sat (and me too in a huff, when it came to mind) -  I hauled the old smith air/ace torch upstairs and created the third bezel after a couple of days and got out a new piece of silver for the base plate.  But I couldn't get over that filigree and patterned ball.  Then the light bulb hit me.  I had been drawing in layers for other pieces so why not cut the good part out of the lost back plate and use it.  It could be sweat soldered down as a whole and add a distinctive layer.  I drew it out. 

I have to add - bezel #3 didn't go down all that easy either.  It was the one I blew the hose on too.  The back plate I chose for it was a scrap from something else and I did not check it well for being flat.  It was NOT and it took three times at the torch to get that bezel completely down and attached appropriately....it's like a curse, no? 

That is where the determination just came in.  This bezel was going down or else (or else what I don't know) but the third time was the charm.  And when I set up the balls and double layer filigree to go down - well - zappo - down they went.  It was anti-climatic and I was so glad for that.

I sawed it out and then have used grinding and coarse polishing discs on the foredom to take the edges the rest of the way down to what you are seeing.  See the filigree piece and patterned ball in their separate layer?  Now it's into the tumbler and some final polishing and maybe I can set that stone.  It's a blue lace agate.  Keep your fingers crossed that it goes easily.  I'll take all the good thoughts I can get on this piece.

Never give up.  If nothing else you will learn what not to do.  LOL, boy did I do that!