12 November 2010

yahoo, keum-boo!

finally!!!!
last week i was finally brave enough to cut pieces out of my sheet of 24k gold (NOT aura 22, i must say), put on my leather gloves, crank up the hot plate to about 900 degrees (using the woodburning stove thermometer)...and burnish the heck out of it! and it worked! on these pieces...

but not on this ring...

i must have tried keum-boo on the little squares of this ring 6 or 7 times with aura 22 and 4 times with the sheet gold. 10 attempts is all i have in me. i quit. i will be trying to use liver of sulfer to make the squares look gold instead, because won't that be beautiful with the pietersite stone?!
i suspect that perhaps that particular spot on the ring was not reaching the temperature required to bond the gold to the fine silver.
the funny thing is, i'm glad i finally successfully accomplished the keum-boo (challenge-MET!) but i don't actually like the look of gold on the pieces i make. it just doesn't look right....

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