Tumble & Clean To Finish Wire Work & Jewelry

As jewelry designers and makers, silversmiths and wire worker, getting the right shine and cleaning of the jewelry is key to selling. But what is the best way, technique or even equipment to properly clean the jewelry and get it ready for the marketplace. Here are some common techniques and suggestions for tumbling and cleaning your jewelry in order to achieve that ‘perfect’ finished look for the marketplace.

Tumbling jewelry is the most popular and common method used by many people to clean their jewelry and harden wire or metal used in the jewelry. There are many different types on the market and range from side rotary barrels to vibrating bowl tumblers. But with so many different machines on the market, which ones are the best or most effective? I suggest first to ask around and get advice from fellow artisans, jewelry makers, silversmiths, and wire workers. As these individuals use tumblers on a daily and weekly basis and can give first hand experience/knowledge to the pros and cons in the use of their type of tumbler and method. There are many on the market and is just depends on how much and what you are doing as to what is your preference.

By tumbling the jewelry, it accomplishes several things; first it cleans the pieces and second it polishes or hardens the metals. I mentioned that there are two types, vibrating/bowl and rotary/barrel tumblers. They all come in a variety of sizes and capacity levels; depending on how much jewelry you are going to put in, depends on what type of tumbler you plan to buy. Do your research and make sure the capacity of the one you chose will do the job without marring, mangling or even breaking your jewelry.

With either of these methods, you will be using a type of tumbling media. Be sure to check that your tumbler can use water (mix in a drop of dish soap) or uses mixed stainless steel media. With the use of dish soap, this acts as a detergent that is good at lifting oil and grim from the surfaces of stones and gets into the small pockets of metals.

Once you have chosen and purchased your tumbler, use these easy tips with your jewelry.

*Put your jewelry in the bowl or barrel
*Add water to about 1” above the jewelry
*Add a drop of dish soap and put the lid back on, tighten and then turn it on

If using a barrel or tumbler that uses dry mix and no water, and then add a hand full of stainless steel mix or what is best for your tumbler, close and tighten lid, turn on.

I’ve found that many people will tumble their jewelry for different times. This is again your preference and will take some trial and error to determine what is best for you. Most people will suggest from 15 minutes to several hours. Depending on what I’m tumbling, I will do between 15-20 minutes, this has been best for my jewelry and tumbler.

Once complete, then pull your jewelry from the tumbler, rise in warm water and dry with a clean soft towel. I then will lay the jewelry out and allow to fully ‘air’ dry for several hours or over night.

Make sure to clean out and maintain the tumbler which ever kind you purchase. Check with the manufacturer for their cleaning and maintenance tips.

Good luck and happy tumbling!

Rugged Earthy Jasper

Jasper is a massive opaque variety that is a mixture of chalcedony, quartz, and opal. The name comes from the Latin name for the stone, iaspis, which probably also referred to other types of chalcedony. Jasper is found as small veins and replacements in different metamorphic and sedimentary rock, and in cracks of volcanic rocks. It is fine-grained and colored by red and yellow iron oxides or green chlorite and actinolite.
Jasper was used by the ancient Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans who carved portraits and such ornamental objects as amulets. It was believed that a person wearing jasper would be protected from illness, especially stomach problems. It has traditionally been used as a gemstone for jewelry; pictured to the left is slabs of landscape/picture jasper.

In this design, these colorful jasper rondelles remind me of the southwest. They give an appearance of rugged earth caverns in shades of rusts, browns, creams, hints of yellow, green and blue. The perfect accent is this beautiful turquoise cross pendant in a lovely shade of blue/green and heavy veining in black/brown; the bail and wire work are of artistic non-tarnish silver wire. I’ve added in a few round turquoise stones that have light brown/tan veining and pewter metal barrel beads that have been etched, giving another flavor of southwest to this necklace design.

Jaspers: Protection, nurturing, joy, awareness; balancing of physical, emotional, intellectual and spiritual energies.
Turquoise: Spiritual attunement, cleansing, healing, protection, valor, soothing, peace of mind, guidance through the unknown, romantic spontaneity.

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Fun In Bones Fossil Design

When I came across these lampwork beads in Tucson this year, I just new I had to have them. The creative look of a bone would really be a great design with some of my fossils. I kept creating until yesterday I came up with this latest creation using the lampwork bones.

The necklace focal is an button ammonite fossil pendant that has a toffee colored background with the fossil in black and off-white, showing just a hint of crystallization. It is polished on one side and left semi-raw on the backside. The pendant is set with supporting and coil wires in artistic non-tarnish brass wire.



The base of the necklace is the fun irregular lampwork bone beads! The colors of the bones are a begie/cream with some being slightly darker than others; I’ve accented some of them with freeform wire wrapping. Between the bones are rough cut rondelles in red star jasper, small black jet disks and round gold-tone spacers.

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Wired Ancient Fossil Meets Southwest

Wired ancient fossil meets a little southwest…..I started this design using a midnight black Ammonite Fossil from Madagascar, it shows a nice vein chambers in gray and is handcrafted in non-tarnish silver with coil and supporting wires. The base of the necklace is then created from Arizona Turquoise (stabilized) graduated in raw chips; all reflecting earthy colors of brown, rust, black, cream, green, and hint of blue. Scattered between the turquoises are barrels of Arizona Ivoryite, faceted smoke black crystal rondelles and silver disk spacers. The set includes the matching pair of black Ammonite Fossil earrings.

The ammonite’s name comes from the shell’s resemblance to a coiled ram’s horn (the ram being the symbol of the Egyptian god Ammon). Like the extinct belemnites and the living nautiloids, octopuses, squid and cuttlefish, they belonged to the mollusk group known as the cephalopods. The name comes from the Greek ‘kephale’ (head) and ‘podia’ (foot), referring to the tentacles they have in the head region.

There are many different species of Ammonites; Phylloceras, Psiloceras, Stephanoceras, and Caloceras just to name a few. I haven’t yet identified which group the pendant and earrings are members but they are quite definitely strikingly black ammonites.


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Dichroic Glass Pendant Wonders

Dichroic glass is glass containing multiple micro-layers of metal oxides which give the glass dichroic optical properties. The invention of dichroic glass is often erroneously attributed to NASA and its contractors, who developed it for use in dichroic filters. Dichroic glass dates back to at least the 4th century AD as seen in the Lycurgus cup.

Multiple ultra-thin layers of different metals (gold, silver), metal oxides (titanium, chromium, aluminum, zirconium, magnesium) and silica are vaporized by an electron beam in a vacuum chamber. The vapor then condenses on the surface of the glass in the form of a crystal structure. This is sometimes followed by a protective layer of quartz crystal. The finished glass can have as many as 30 to 50 layers of these materials yet the thickness of the total coating is approximately 30 to 35 millionths of an inch (about 760 to 890 nm). The coating that is created is very similar to a gemstone and, by careful control of thickness, different colors are obtained.

I love working with dichroic glass, just not really good at making any beads or pendants; however I’m in luck! A very good friend and fellow artisan Anna is a premier glass designer here in San Antonio, Texas. She makes some of the most incredible, gorgeous dichroic one-of-kind pieces (I know, I personally have quite a few of her pendant sets!). I buy her pendants and incorporate them into my own creative designs; accenting with wire, metals, crystals, or natural stones; drawing on the colors of the pendant to develop the jewelry.

These two designs are using Anna’s pendants as a focal and then using the different wire and charm techniques to showcase the beauty found within each individual pendant.

In the first design, I use a free form shaped pendant that is hung below the crystals from non-tarnish brass wire as a bail. I’ve then accented with individual hand-charmed pieces in black agate, beige freshwater cultured pearl nuggets, creamy white glass pearls, and faceted swarovski crystals in erinite and indicolite. The creation hangs from an eggshell colored silk cord in a stationary position. There are little hints of wire in hanging swirls also handcrafted in non-tarnish brass wire.

The second piece I chose a nice almost arrowhead shaped pendant with accenting designs in gold, green and hint of blue against a black background. Surrounding it again are hand-charmed pieces in faceted swarvoski crystals indicolite, cosmo black, gold/black Diablo, gold, citrine, ab smoky topaz, and metallic green-blue. The all are braided on a 6 strand ribbon cord necklace; I left them a little lose as this fit better to this type of a design, you can twist the crystals around to change the colors slightly. Hidden among the crystals are a few handmade wire spirals in non-tarnish brass wire.

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*Research from various websites.