The Poplar series - Earrings, a pendant, a ring and a bracelet made out of Poplar leaves.

 

 

In the late summer, I was wandering through the woods and I noticed that one species of tree was starting to lose its leaves.

For me, that was an interesting thing. The fascinating thing was that those leaves were heart shaped. That gave me a reason to collect some and bring them home to make something out of them.

A month ago, I finally decided to create this set of jewels.

I saw these small carnelian and blue agate cabochons and instantly thought they can be good together.

 

Here all the material I've used for this project:

• Poplar leaves
• Cabochons
• Copper wires of different diameters
  
• Toothpicks
  
• CA Glue
• Silver paint marker
  
• UV Resin
• Acetone
• Pickling solution
  
• Conductive Paint
• E6000 Glue
• Relief paint
• Electroforming Solution
• Liver of Sulfur
• Baking Soda
• Distilled Water
• Jewelry hardware

and all the tools:

• Nippers
• UV lamp
• Ball peen hammer
• Rubber hammer
• DIY texturing hammer
  
• Anvil
• File
• V Slot bench
• Gas Torch
• Heatproof surface
  
• Round nose pliers
• Flat nose pliers
• Scissors
• Cloth Pins
• Bracelets Mandrel
• Rings Mandrel
• Ring Size Mandrel
  
• Mason Jars
• Airbrush
• Brushes
• Various plastic containers
  
• All the electroforming supplies described in the previous post

Working with dry leaves always bring us to an issue. They are crumbly, so they can break in to our hands anytime.

The first thing I'm gonna do, just with one leaf, is to soak it in water overnight for the reason I will describe later.

This project is all about preparation.

If we dop cabochons, it's easier to handle them while we are painting the bottom with silver paint. I'm just attaching a toothpick on top of each cabochon with CA glue.

The silver paint will enhance the luminosity of the stone, since they will be glued facing the black graphite paint.

I'm using a Silver Marker but can be also used silver nail polish or Silver mirror varnish.

The next step on the preparation is to glue all the hardware on our leaves.

With UV Resin, I'm gluing jump-rings on the smaller leaves to make the earrings.

 

UV Resin will harden under UV Light. The most common tool for this job is a fingernail's UV Lamp.

 

For the pendant, I choose to put two leaves together. 

I've decided not to use regular jump-rings, so I'm making two jump-ring-holders with copper wire.

Just flatting two small portion of 2.5 mm copper wire with hammer and anvil.

 

After being hammered, the copper become too hard to be shaped, so I'm gonna annihilate my two pieces with a torch to get them soft enough to be worked. Then quenching in water and clean fire scales in pickling solution.

Round the edges with a file on a V Slot bench. And shape them with a round nose pliers, and a flat nose one. 

 

I glued the handmade jump-ring on both sides of those leaves and then glue all parts.
For this process, I used a medium viscosity CA Glue: 401 Korean Glue.

For the bracelet, I'm using the same 2.5 mm copper wire. Cut approximately 10 inches (ca. 25 cm). On the anvil, I use now a DIY Hammer for texturing. I made interchangeable heads with bolts.

 

 

To shape the bracelet, I use a wooden mandrel and the rubber hammer.

 

I do the same texture on the ring and shape it with a ring's steel mandrel.

The most common size of rings is 7.5 (approximately 18 mm). To measure that, I use a simple measurement mandrel.

When hands touch copper or basically anything, they will release grease. This will cause fast oxidation or in the worst case scenario the copper ions during the electroforming process won't stick on your piece. That's why I always wash metal pieces with acetone. Alcohol can work as well for the purpose.

Now it's time to remove the leaf that I put in water to soak. It's soft enough, so it doesn't crack or crumble on my hand while I cut some oval shape to put under the cabochons for the bracelet and the ring.

To glue them in place, I use my 401 superglue.

After gluing pieces together, there will always be a gap between them. In this case, there is a gap between the oval leaves and the copper wire. The solution is to fill the holes with something like clay, resin, tons of layers of conductive paint or, relief paint.

For me in this situation, relief paint is the best solution. Application is easy, it gets dry fast, and we only need a layer to cover all the gaps.

 

And it's time for conductive paint. I dip the bracelet and the ring directly in the jar. Earrings and the pendant are made entirely of leaves so, to maintain the texture and grains of them I've decided to paint them with the airbrush to have a thin layer of paint.

 

Now that we covered all the pieces with conductive paint, we can mount our cabochons. The best glue for this step in E6000 glue. It will set in 24 hours, but it's worth it because it's very strong.

 

 

And off course between cabochons and the leaves there will be some gaps that need to be filled with the relief paint and also be covered again with conductive paint.

Then, they finally go in to the tank.

To be sure that the conductivity of the entire circuit is perfect, I always add cloth pins to keep the hooks in contact with the cathode bar.

I make all my electroforming solutions on my own, and this one in particularly is made for a thin and shiny copper cover. The reason I use this mixture is that I want to see the grain of the leaves. 

Once they are ready, I remove them from the tank and wash the excess copper sulfate in distilled water for the next step.

This is the funniest part of the job. Making patina.

We need two plastic containers with distilled water. In the first one we add liver of sulfur, in the other one baking soda. 

Liver of sulfur is the chemical substance used to color copper. It oxidizes the metal. Coloring metals with liver of sulfur it's a matter of time. If we leave our piece in for a few seconds, this substance will oxidize the metal a little bit creating different colors and shades of orange, brown, blue, purple, gold.

Leaving our piece longer will turn the pieces black. In this case, it can be sand to reveal the copper color under it.

In this project,  I've decided to make a colorful patina. After we dip the piece in liver of sulfur, we instantly dip it in the baking soda solution to neutralize the reaction.

Liver of sulfur has an intense smell produced by the evaporation of the sulfides, just like rotten eggs. It's recommended to use a respirator mask or work in a ventilated area.
Also, after we are done with our job, we need to neutralize it with baking soda or leave it to evaporate before flushing in the drain. It's a toxic substance, we don't want to contribute to pollution.

 

The last step to complete our jewels is to mount the hardware.

Hooks for the earring and a chain and a clasp for the pendant.

 

 

The ring and the bracelet are good as they are.

 

Here's the video on YouTube about this project. Please watch it and subscribe to my channel for more.

 

 

Thank you all! CuForming.

Let's set up the Tank!

 

 

Here we are!

The first step to start Electroforming is to set up our laboratory with all the equipment we need.

All the tools and material can be adapted depending on your necessity. If it's a business or you just wanna make your own jewelry and have fun, you need to scale all the equipment to your needs.

The tank is the protagonist of this first post because inside the tank are gonna take place all the electrochemical processes, that will lead us to the creation of our objects.

 

Here all the tools and material I'm using to set up the tank:

• Tank. Can be any plastic or glass beaker (do not use any kind of metal).
• An adjustable power supply.
• Two wires with alligator clips.
  
• Magnetic stirrer.
• Magnetic stir bars.
  
• One or more copper pieces for the anode pole. Any kind of pure copper is gonna be good, such as plumbing pipes, electrical wire, electrical grounding bars etc.
• Anode bag for filtering your anodes.
  
• A copper rod for the cathode pole. Or a wooden shaft for single objects.
  
• Fish tank heater.
• Thermometer for liquids (a fish tank one is the best).
• Electroforming Solution
  

 

I'm using a 10L plastic container. With 8 liters of solution.

Glass beakers are a good solution for small batches. A 10L beaker can be very expensive and for some uses really uncomfortable. It can also break any time for any reason.

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 A 5 Amperes adjustable Power supply.

It is good for 1 to 12 liters of solution, and I can fit in 20 rings at once. For more liquid and pieces, the maximum current must be higher.

There are two methods to regulate the power supply. The first is by Amps. After dipping in the piece, you just set the amps between 0.01A and 0.1A for every inch square. That's not my favorite method.

In my personal experience, and based on the chemistry of the solution, the current will go up as the copper coat grow on the piece. Therefore, before I dip the piece in, I rather set the current all the way up and the voltage between 0.1V to 0.2V for every inch square. With this method, I can see the current grow to the value I want and stop it, or just regulate the speed of the process to reach my desired result.

*Going under range will cause a very long time for the object to get coated (worst-case scenario, it will never start the process). Going over range will “burn” your piece, it means that the coating will get super rough and black just like a burned piece of metal.

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 Copper electrical wires with alligator clips that I made my self with a 6 mm electrical wire.

 

These are DIY magnetic stirrers that I also made by my self.

Stirring the solution will help all the copper ions to be distributed homogeneously.

Lots of options can be found on the internet that you can buy. If you choose a glass beaker instead of plastic, you can buy a stirrer with the hot plate and avoid the fish tank heater.

 

Stir bars can be of different kind and length. You should choose the length based on the capacity of your tank.

For the anode pole, there are endless possibilities. I'm using plumbing pipes.

I'm using a pipe cutter to obtain the right length.

For a small rounded container, a simple copper wire spiral shaped is the best choice.

 

However, any pure copper bar is perfect for the job, the fatter it is, the longer it's gonna last.

 

Anode bags are time and trouble saver if you do lots of objects. They are good for filtration of small copper particles that are gonna come off of any anode bar. That's inevitable! Usually, when the bars are brand new there is no concern about this issue, but after they start to worn out, you will see a deposit of little pieces of copper on the bottom of your tank. If you use a stirrer, it's gonna be worst. They will travel everywhere in the liquid, and they will stick to all the pieces, forming lots of pointy spikes. Those are gonna be annoying, and jewelry can get stuck on clothes or even cause scratches on your skin.

 

Anode bags are a prerogative for smooth surfaces and for plating, and they can be very expensive.

If you do one piece at the time you can pour off the liquid and filter it with coffee filters that is gonna be very annoying.

A cheap alternative (very cheap) is dust cloth like Swiffer or basically any other brand.

Wrap around the anode, cut, and seal with a heat sealer. It's plastic, it's gonna melt together, so you can form the bag.

 

For the cathode, I use copper rods.

A wooden shaft can also be use for single objects. The alligator clip can be plugged directly on the object.

 

A fish tank heater is used to keep the temperature on the correct range. All the documentations that I considered, report as the right range between 15 °C and 30 °C (59 °F to 86 °F).

 

The temperature must be considered as an important factor for the texture of the copper coating. Lower temperature gives you a smoother coat and higher temperature gives you a rough coat.

Same as the current…. * Going under range will cause a very long time for the object to get coated (worst-case scenario, it will never start the process). Going over range will “burn” your piece, it means that the coating will get super rough and black just like a burned piece of metal.

My favorite range is between 19 °C to 27 °C.

A thermometer  will be needed to measure the temperature. It must be a thermometer for liquids, but not any kind of thermometer for liquids is good. I'm using one for fish tanks because it's made out of glass. Those with metal probe and thermocouple can contaminate the liquid and even get dissolved by the acid in the solution. A plastic probe could be ok as long as the thermocouple is seal, so the liquid don't penetrate inside it.
 

 

Electroforming solution is the most significant material for the process. I'm not gonna talk about it in this post because it's a very long topic, and it requires a post just for itself.

There are lots and lots of variables in this process. Any value that is changed will make the difference on the final result. Sometimes it could give you an interesting effect and other times could be a mess.

On YouTube, there is a video related to this post. Please watch it and subscribe to my channel for more.

 

Thank you all! CuForming.