August Project: Revisiting a Favorite

I wanted to make another version of the Byzantine necklace from the Met collection. I've given away the other two I've made (and in all honesty, I'm making several now so that I can give more away). This may be my favorite piece to gift. Here's the original (photos from the Met website).

I approached different versions (this time around) different ways. I wanted to try 18 gauge wire for the inner "heart" shapes, as opposed to 20, which I've used before. The first one, I made up the hearts one by one, to fit my drawing. This was a mistake. It didn't come out terribly, but it lacked consistency and one of my clasp pieces is decidedly oblong. It's not the absolute worst thing in the world, but it bothers me. So for my second version, I went back to 20 gauge wire (fine silver) and actually measured, going in stages so that I ended up with precisely measured V shapes that fit together nicely. Then I formed the hearts, and I'm much happier with the finished pieces. Finally, not one to give up, I followed the same method with the 18 gauge wire (also fine silver), and achieved a much happier result. 

And here's the 18 gauge version. 

I feel like the 20 gauge is more true to the original proportion, but the 18 works. Here are the two pairs side by side after soldering. 

The next step is to form the beaded wire frame. 

Following that, I added the loops for attachment, the bail, and the hook. This is the hardest part. These attachments definitely aren't as clean as I'd like on all the pieces. See that little bead at the bottom of the second one? Yeah, that was a hiccup. I can't get it off (I tried) so that'll become a hook end. 

And the hooks (what will become hooks). These were easier than the small bails. Still less than perfect, but I'm happy with them. They vary from the original. I tried doing something more like the original, but it didn't work. These little granules offer support and municipal the other side of the piece, so I rolled with it. 

My writeup from the last time really helped me with this step. Melting the piece at this point is heartbreaking, and I've done it before. Holding the piece the the third hand and placing the larger bail on the charcoal block really helps. I also tinned the larger bail this time, for two out of the three. Not a period practice, but in period, they would have had powdered solder, which is definitely a step closer to tinning than using chip solder.

They just need a little polish and they're ready to become necklaces! I'm calling the project here, for this month. The one that I freehanded came out quite a bit smaller than the ones I carefully measured. They were all based on the same sketch, so that's interesting. I may make a smaller sketch at some point, and purposefully make smaller ones, but I think the larger ones are the right size to match the original more closely. What is a happy thing is that while you can still see that one of the smaller ones is decidedly oval, it's not as bad now as it was before the bails went on. 

In the end, I definitely want to make another one of these, probably multiples if I'm being honest. The originals use square section wire, and have a substantially thicker bail. I use to have some half round wire that I used on a previous version, but I apparently ran out. So I used 16 gauge because it's what I had on hand, but it's woefully puny compared to the original. So yeah, I think I have the process down for making the components, I just want to get or make more accurate materials for the next time or three.