Hey Steemians,
I have finished another new pendant to show you and a brief how to guide on oxidising the finished piece using a slightly strange method.
I've been wanting to wrap this piece of Labradorite for quite a while but other projects kept getting in the way so another bank holiday weekend meant I had time to sit down and mess around with a design for it.
I would have liked to of made this in Sterling Silver but i'm running a bit low on supplies at the moment so copper it is. I have another slightly larger piece of Labradorite so maybe that will get the silver treatment in the future, we'll see.
Oxidising the Copper
So, normally I use a chemical called Liver of Sulphur to oxidise my pieces. It's very quick and relatively easy to use however it is quite toxic and smells terrible. Anyway, I got everything prepped to start the process before realising I used it all up on my last project, annoying!
Not to worry i thought, I'd heard of a couple of methods for oxidising metals using household items so online I went to look for the method.
The most simple and one i remembered reading about was using a hard boiled egg, of all things!
Here's the pendant pre oxidisation, squeaky clean
The method is quite simple, hard boil an egg, let it cool, then put it in a sealed plastic bag with the item to be oxidised, not forgetting to mash the egg a little first.
The theory behind this technique is that the egg contains sulphur, the yolk specifically so I'm told. The gases released into the sealed bag react with the copper to give it that antiqued, aged patina.
You can see here, just about, through the bag the copper discolouring slowly.
Its quite a slow process compared with the liver of sulphur which is almost instant but by moving the pendant on top of the egg and leaving it for about 40 minutes I was able to get a nice dark colour I was happy with.
And the final result, Labradorite is always better in person, these photos don't do it justice.
Previous Post - https://steemit.com/steemmakers/@robali123/brass-watch-movement-pendant-and-wire-ramblings
