More Spots. Earrings. 14/14.

In deciding to make a piece every single day for a whole year, I had to accept that some days were not going to be as good as others. We all have our off days, right? Days when, despite best efforts and intentions, things simply do not go they way we planned. Welcome to my Saturday. I got in early and worked today's piece overnight, having started off in tandem with the tie tack from yesterday.
It's a pair of earrings made to the same design as the tie tack, only slightly smaller.

Spotty Earrings. Sterling silver & copper inlay.

As you can see from the photo, I didn't do as good a job with the inlay on these as I did with the tie tack from yesterday. What you can't tell from yesterdays photo is that the tie tack is only marginally better. Okay. The point, or one of the points of this whole challenge was to get me working every day. To get me learning and improving upon what I do. I did say at the outset that some, if not all, of these daily pieces would be exercises and samples. So let's say that's what these last couple of pieces have been. Looked at that way, they're a huge success, because I've learned a lot of valuable lessons in making them.

I know that if I'm going to do this style of drilled and filled wire inlay again, I'll need to start with a thicker base sheet. More importantly, I'll need to ensure a much tighter fit for my wire. It would help if I had the right size drill bits for each gauge, as reaming out the holes, I didn't manage to be as precise as I needed to be. One moment too tight, a couple of twists more, slightly loose.  Turns out slightly loose is too loose. It works okay if you use plenty of solder and file back - so long as you don't need to apply heat again, and you have a reasonable thickness of metal to work with. I did need to solder again, and I didn't have a very thick sheet. I did go down to a lower melt point of solder, but the piece being so small, it heated fast, so it didn't help much. I could have put some extra solder on, but then that would have meant more clean up. I didn't want to file too much away and end up with a piece too thin to use. The ideal thing would have been to have access to a rolling mill, as this would have made sure I got a nice tight fit, while compressing the whole thing. Sadly, I don't have one and can't afford one of my own at this stage. I'm sure that would make a difference though. I'll have another go at this style of inlay once my CIT class starts again this year and just see what difference the mill would really make. I rather like the design, production faults aside. I think this is another idea I'll revisit, hopefully with more success next time, given what I've learned in the doing.

Something a little different again tomorrow, I think. I have the rest of the day to ponder on it.