Intricate new Silver piece just finished + behind the scenes

Hello!

Just finished this piece at last, it's been taking up quite a bit of my time over the past week, and a lot of my Silver! It is up for sale for anyone interested. Hope you like it.

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Materials

I used a mix of Sterling Silver (92.5%) and Fine Silver (99.9%). This was my first time using fine silver and it's definitely going to be useful for future work. One thing I found challenging moving from copper to sterling silver wire is the hardness of the wire.

Copper is very soft and tends to stay where you put it. Over the years, I must have got so used to using it, that when I started using silver I struggled to get the same nice shapes and lines, even dead soft silver tends to be a bit more springy compared to its copper equivalent. I'm getting used to it, but it's definitely not the same.

Anyway, I recently bought some 0.3mm fine silver for the more intricate weaving. This wire is dead soft like I would compare it to bending some lead (assuming you've ever done that!).

It's great stuff and works well for adding weaves to thinner gauge wires that are already in situ as it won't pull on them and distort the lines.

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The Stones

The stones are Moonstone (top), Black Tourmaline (center), and a small piece of Zincite (bottom right).
If you missed the piece I put up last month featuring a piece of Zincite and my love of the stuff it's basically an orangey red manmade crystal, Here's a wiki link for more info: Zincite Its cool stuff.

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Process

I was nervous starting this piece as it's the most silver I've used in one piece ever before so if any mess ups would be costly! Lots of planning and measuring to be done.
As with most of the complex pieces I make, I began with picking some stones and making a few sketches, drawing round the stones for a guide.

Step 1	Step 2

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Step 3	Step 4

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Step 5	Step 6

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Step 7	Step 8

Step 9	Step 10

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Step 11	Step 12

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Step 13	Step 14

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Step 15	Step 16

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Step 17	Step 18

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Step 19	Step 20

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Step 21	Step 22

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Step 23	Step 24

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Finished

Here's a ton of photos I took as I've recently dug out my proper camera, much better quality than camera phone.

Managed to get a good shot of the Moonstone fire, much better effect in person.

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Phew! Formating this post was pretty long, I hope it makes for easy viewing and isn't too pic heavy on phones.