Video:Make Reticulated Sheet Earring

Transcript:Make Reticulated Sheet Earring

Hi. I’m Jeanette Caines, an instructor at Jewelry Arts Institute and I’m here for About.com. Today we’re going to make these great reticulated earrings. Reticulated is just a fancy name for melted. They’re quick and easy and I think they’re really fun.

Tools Needed for Melted Silver Earrings

• 10,000 fine silver sheet cut into squares
• 20 Gauge Sterling Silver wire for our ear wires
• Charcoal block
• Medium solder
• Tweezers
• Round nose pliers
• Chain nose pliers
• A file
• Torch

Melt the Silver into Earrings

This is an incredibly fun thing to do but I do recommend you stand up because you’re going to have your metal melted, really just going to burn a hole right in my sheet. I’ve got it flat on my charcoal block, got my frame going straight down and there’s my hole. Then, I can just sort of gently without over doing it too much, make the hole bigger like this. Once I feel like my center hole is big enough, I pull my flame away and melt the outside edges in. You have to melt a little and pull away. And there’s no real set answer to when you’re finished. It’s really when it looks good to you.

Shape the Silver Wire and Attach to Earring

Valerie’s going to make the ear wire now out of our Sterling wire. You make a little loop on the bottom and before it’s completely closed she’ll just slide her reticulated circle completely through. To get them to butt together nicely what you really have to do is take it and press it a little bit past the other wire. Them when you pull it back it will kind of spring under tension and catch in place.

Valerie’s going to ball up her solder because I find it easiest to get that in position. Dip it in a little bit of flux and sit it right on the joint. That’s it. Now we’ll pickle it. When we make up a fresh batch of pickle we’re going to use about a quarter of a cup of the sodium bi-sulfate per quart of water. It’s extremely important, add the acid to the water, not the water to the acid.

Sand and Polish the Finished Silver Earrings

The only thing left is to make the ear wire. Ear wires are really easy to make. They’re just a simple curve. Just like that I’ll trim off the excess, sand the end a little bit, so it’s not too sharp. Each of these earrings is like a snowflake and they’ll literally take you probably less than 20 minutes.

Thanks for watching, to learn more, join us on the web at About.com.