Rings

    

   Silver plated rings made out of  butter knifes. A series of 10 butter knifes rings that came out of the atelier this week. Not only butter knifes are used in the making of the cutlery rings. Up to today I used tea spoons , forks and butter knifes. Going around on flea market to find those cutlery you can get surprised. . . Mostly those cutlery are silver plated brass, but you can get alpaca, silver, stainless steel and other alloys ... So a wide range of materials that should be recognised at a glance. Not always easy, but by time you get used to it and generally you get right. I choose the silver plated brass and silver when I can offer it. 

Bracelets suite, 4 new pieces.

   New bracelets 3 out of 4 . A series  only made out of sewing machine parts, as well for the steel and the screws. The size a quite large this time. There will be presented in a few weeks in the show window at Marianne Gray http://mariannegray.com/ 

     This last one, made in 3 parts has brass rivets and a brass screw to lock it . The steel come from    

     sewing machines and a brass screw from an old alarm clock . 

" Parcours d'artistes " Jette 23/24 Avril 2016

Pendant

  

  New collection of necklaces for Marianne Gray. Forged out of steel with a little brass part which is solder or riveted to the necklace with a brass chain . A work inspired by curves and shapes of Art nouveau, some thing that I actually like very much . I'll present them to John Velasquez next week . 

Forged earrings

  

   Forged earrings , obviously forged out of a pair of screws .
They look a bit like two seahorses, but don't mistake they come out of the fire not the sea. . . A delicate work to handle those little objects in the fire of the forge. The funny thing is that you need to heat up those little part more than bigger parts, simply because they could dawn so much faster. As well you have to get them to the same size in order to be abel to make a pair of earrings. So at the end they tend to take a bit of time to be made .This is one paire out of a series of 5 paires. The size is ranging from 2.5 to 3.5 cm . Of course I patinated them in black and bee's waxed it. They will be presented at Marianne Gray next week a long with bracelets and a new collection of necklaces .

Bracelets suite & a bite more.

  Still hot from the forge. A collection of 8 new pieces. Forged out of reinforcement steel rods, sewing machine parts and other steel rods from different origins . This time they all have that special screw coming from the foot of the sewing machine, thank's to George from Bernina. Actually that those screws named " vise mon pied "in french are note used and made any more by Bernina.Those screws turn out to be rare.

  About the making of those bracelets. If you look the blog you will see it is some time now I am making those bracelets. And by time technique improve, the method improve, but stile a lot to learn. It is a step by step process. First get the metal from working sites or sewing machines. It is easy from working sites but take a little more time from sewing machines which you first need to get and then unbild. I then forge the first parts of the bracelet the main part and the closing part; Then bend the edges in a loop to the size of the rivet and the screw. Next step I have to adjust the two parts of the bracelet, prepare a nail that will be used for the rivet, fix the screw to the bracelet, make the screw pad, fix the rivet. at this stage the bracelets has it final shape. Finally I give the patina to the bracelet and wax it. By time if weared every day the bracelet will take a very nice patina. This is part of this Jewelry, the patina of time is adding some thing to the bracelet. I gave my very first bracelet to Miho which is wearing it almost every day for 3 years now and it took a very nice patina , kept black and got shiny on some edges were there is some fricsions.

" 2 présentoirs " for jewelery

   Two rods forged out of renforcement steel rods. The two pieces are screwed together and fixed screwed to the base. Patinated in black and waxed finished. Soon it will be in Brussels to show a new collection of forged necklaces.  

 The next one in the same stile but smaller. This one will be used for the first collection of forged earrings. I forged it as well for the presentation in the show window at Marianne Gray in the rue des Chapeliers, Bruxelles. 

The atelier to day.

The atelier to day.

Light wardrobe .

Light wardrobe. 

 The room dose not have walls and doors . Space is separated by curtain's which the rail is fixed on the support pals . The fixations are forged, patinated, waxed and screwed together, no welding . I used for this one steel renforcement bars from working sites and old gaz pipes. 

Door handle .

Door handle 

For a glass door. Forged out steel reinforcement bar and 

fixed to the door with a screw that passe though the door 

and come to screw in both handle. There is a little rubber 

between the metal and the glass as sizes will variate a little 

with changes of temperature between winter & summer.

Upcycled. No material has been bought . The steel reinforcement 

bar come from scrap metal from a working site, rubber from an old 

punctured tire. The screw is home made out of a steel part form an

unidentified object that was found some were I don't remember ... 

Desk lamp.

  Upcycling & forging as usual . I made this lamp for the display window at Marianne Grey near Grand Place in Bruxelles at No 48-40 rue des Chapeliers which needed more light for the different jewellery I exhibit there. This lamp will be highlighting the forged bracelets. 

  The foot of the lamp was the base of a balance in casted iron, it was a little delicate to patina on the casted iron . The piece been long I had to take extra care to heat up the piece evenly in the forge. The structure of the lamp is forged and the lamp shade is an assembly of two parts coming from 2 old typing machines. Every thing is bolted and screwed together. 

Lamp

  Made last week, it is getting darker  and darker with the winter coming. So we needed a bit more light .  The lamp is not forged, it is an assembly of different part. From top to bottom I used a spring to hang the lamp. It is coming from a washing machine. A screw from an old sewing machine to let the electric wire out . A bolt, a fixation and an isolator coming from a hight voltage pylon.  Finally a lampshade which has been patinated black at the forge . 

" Présentoir "

  Made to present earrings made from the characters of an old typing machine. The base is a steel plate , the middle of the structure is made from two forged bars and the top of the "présentoir" is the part in the typing machine that was holding all those tiny letters. And a few screws to hold every thing together.

 

Butter knife rings

  I found a series of butter knifes quite interesting for they shape and motives and turned them in to rings. Here you can see 3 pieces out of a collection of 10. Working on the butter knifes was some thing different again from forks and tea spoons. The handle of the knife is always thicker than the blade and the part were the blade and the handle join is always thiner. Those three things make it a bit more complex to work. as well a lot of material which finally gives an imposing ring .

Forged bracelets suite.

       9 bracelets out of a series of 20. A big part of the collection is forged out of those metal bars           

      you find on working sites . The other part of the collection is forged out steel parts from old 

      typing machine and sewing machines . This time I run out of those specific screws for the 

      " feet " of sewing machine so I came up with more brass screws and rivets or arranging an 

      existing screws to fit the bracelets.

Lamp.

One of a series of two .

Brass & Steel 

The brass part is made out of an assembly of different parts of old petrol lamps. 

The rest is forged and put together with screws. This lamp is made so that you 

can fix it with two screws on a chair for reading. The brass part has many regular 

gaps which let the light draw lines and dots on the surrounding walls . . . 

Forged earring.

Forged earring, first try . 

A Little long and heavy, with surgical steel, not for every body. . . But it is a first try . I will have to forge thinner and smaller. 

Hum . . . I have those old springs from an old bed, they seam to be at a good size to start and they are made out of good material .
A suivre . . . 

Bracelets suite.

        The collection is increasing. This 11 new pieces are all forged out of steel 

      all fitted with a screw coming from a sewing machine . About the screws, I want to say a special     

     thank to  Georges form Bernina in Brussels which kindly provide me with those screw whitch are  

     not made any more. So once more there is recycling and upcycling in the process . 

Stand for bracelets.

Forged stands for bracelets . 

Forge & Silver Smithing

 The silver smithing 

workshop.

 It is now more than 6 month that we are sharing the space of the forge with " Steph. ".    
  He need a space to put his jewelry workshop and we wanted to start soldering again . . . So we are sharing space and tools . this gave birth to a jewelry work shop next to the forge. It was fun to solder silver again, use all those small specific tools to jewelry . After all those years I did not forget what I was taught in Camberwel and come up with different pieces, mainly rings and pendants.
  Here on the right is a silver frame made for a antic pure silver coin from Japan. It took me some time but I did not want to damage the old coin and made this 925 silver frame for it .
 many other pieces have been made but I do not always take a picture . . .

           Under is a ring made from the tooth of a fork with a gearing from and old petrol lamp.

silver plated brass & brass