Saturday, September 1, 2012

Practical Joining

Bringing It All Together

It was going to be a real challenge. I had crocheted a rectangular swatch from fine silver wire. The design that was racing around in my head would incorporate this piece as the inner body of my butterfly broach. The form itself was constructed of black Lucite. The next stepwas to place the airy crocheted piece over this. A winged sterling silver frame was then placed as the edging over the entire butterfly. So far, so good! After much hit and miss, I decided to join the completed piece together with very small brass brads. In addition to a great “cold connection,” they lent a decorative accent to the construction.

The book “Practical Joining” by Tim McCreight, is an excellent compilation of various cold and hot joining techniques available to the contemporary metal smith. The illustrations and explanations are straight forward. It is pointed out that some materials, like my Lucite base are heat sensitive, so therefore, heat connections are out of the question. The different sections of the book cover cold connection elements such as rivets, tabs, staples, bezels, glue, friction collars, settings, threaded connections, bolts and nuts, etc.

The hot connection section discusses soldering and all that is involved in the process in addition to brazing and welding. There is an excellent section on all the necessary tools for successful hot connections.

If I had owned “Practical Joining,” with the comprehensive section on “cold connections,” my butterfly could have emerged from its cocoon much sooner.


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10 comments:

  1. This is a really great piece. Have you tried tatting with silver? I do crochet, knitting and tatting but favor tatting for it's lacy quality. Will have to think about trying it for a piece like yours. Thank you for the inspiration!!!
    Annette

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  2. I love cold connections. Your piece is lovely, the rivets and narrow edge set the crochet beautifully. Thanks!

    staggart@live.com

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  3. Beautiful piece! And the book sounds very interesting ... I'll check it out.
    Natalie
    knotthome11@sbcglobal.net

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  4. Practical Joining is a great book that I also own! Great reference for all you want to do in a compact package. Love Annette's idea on tatting! I will have to give that a try!
    Mfglaeser@yahoo.com

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  5. Who wouldn't enjoy a book by Tim McCreight?
    SilversmithGoddess@yahoo.com

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  6. sounds like a must have book, thanks for the review. birgittak@verizon.net

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  7. The butterfly worked out very nicely. Yes, a book on varius connections should be on every jeweler's book shelf. I'm studying fabrication at the Art Museum and this book is on the top of my wishlist.

    ddj0195 at Yahoo dot com :)

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  8. Oh your butterfly is beautiful! I love how you've taken something so delicate and showed its strength with out losing the beauty!
    tammyskowhegan1@comcast.net

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