Basic metal plate jewelry construction - art project - Brief Article

Arts & Activities, May, 2003 by Hugh Petersen

I wanted my eighth-graders to experience jewelry making but my art room, like many of your middle-school art rooms, is not equipped with soldering stations with acetylene torches and pickling solutions.

Nevertheless, there are many important basic jewelry-construction techniques the students could still learn. I did have enough equipment to teach the students sawing, filing, sanding and polishing--all skills that are important in constructing jewelry from metal plate.

We started with 18-gauge pre-cut copper shapes, these come in a variety of shapes and for this project the students had a choice of a 2-inch circle or square. Next we traced the shape several times on a piece of 9" x 12" white drawing paper. I wanted the students to sketch several ideas of their pierced design, which they would cut into their copper metal shape. As usual you do get several students that have no idea what to draw so I let them get ideas from the computer by looking up simple black-and-white clip art.

When their drawing was finished we cut it out and rubber cemented them onto their piece of metal. Next using an awl and drill, I drilled holes into their metal where needed. Their piece was now ready to saw. The students were instructed on how to use a jeweler saw and a bench pin to have minimum saw blade breakage. The students gained some good experience cutting out their integrated pierced designs.

The students also received excellent experience on filing their piece after their designs were cut out. The students found out firsthand how important it was to cut their design out cleanly to make their filing easier. They also found out that it takes a lot of patience to file a quality piece of jewelry.

They were not finished; next we needed to sand the piece and we did this with medium- and, then, fine-grit emery cloth. Now the piece was ready to polish with tripoli and rouge. We used a Dremel[R] tool with felt buffing tips to polish the jewelry piece, or you could use a felt hand buff.

The final step was to put their jewelry masterpiece onto a key chain. The students liked the key-chain idea, as many of my students were eligible to take driver's education this summer and would now have a nice piece of jewelry to mark the occasion.

MATERIALS

* Jeweler's adjustable saw frame and saw blades

* Bench pin

* Awl

* Files, emery cloth and felt hand buff

* Tripoli and red rouge

* Key chains

* 18-gauge copper shapes

* Drill

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

Students will ...

* identify and use jewelry-making tools.

* create a drawing for their metal designs.

* practice sawing, filing and polishing their metal piece.

* create a metal key chain using jewelry-making techniques.

Hugh Petersen is an art teacher for the New Holstein Schools in New Holstein, Wisconsin.