Electroforming is Art, Science and Alchemy all together. Electricity and Chemistry will encounter Geology, Botany, Sculpting, Metallurgy, Painting, Anatomy, Cryptozoology, Paleontology and more than you can think.
In this blog, I'll explain all the necessary steps to achieve the knowledge to practice this Beautiful Art.
With electroforming, I use a lot of gemstones. I buy them already cut and polished or rough. Sometimes they need to be adapted to the project that I'm doing and, especially, the rough ones, need to be cut.
Cutting stones is relatively easy, but inconvenient because of all the dust they produce during the process.
Breathing silica dust or other kind of mineral's is not good for your health. Using a mask could be a solution, but the result, in the long-term, will be a lab cover with a layer of dust even if you clean every day, and you don't want it in your electroforming bath.
The best solution that every gemstone worker knows is WATER.
Water will prevent all the dust from flying everywhere, but I don't have all the machinery to work with stones, soI needed to do something cheap and fast.
Since I already have a rotary tool with diamond discs, I decide to do some adaptation to it.
I recycled a plastic bottle as a container. The bottle needs to be large enough to make room for the rotary tool.
I marked the design I needed with a marker and then cut with scissors. I left 5 cm on the bottom to hold the water, and I kept the handle to hold the hose that comes from the pump.
With the cone drill bit, I made a 1.8 cm hole for the rotary tool to pass through.
At first, I drill the hole on one side, but the next day I change my mind and make the hole a bit bigger (2 cm) on the back. In this way, I didn't have to hold the rotary tool with my hand and there was less splashing water. I covered the previous hole with duct tape.
With epoxy resin, I glued the water pump on the bottom, and it was a mess. The next day, the pump got detached, I didn't have waterproof epoxy, so I decided to secure it with zip ties.
I mounted the rubber hose on the pump and make it pass through the handle of the bottle. I also add a smaller piece of hose at the end and choke it with a zip tie. Furthermore, I pierced a hole for the spillage of the water.
On the handle, I putted a piece of aluminum wire with zip ties to hold up the hose and make it adjustable.
This was an easy project, fast and cheap. It's not supposed to be used to slice big stones, but only to cut sharp edges or small pieces.
I hope you liked this project, please check the video on YouTube.
I had this bird Skull laying down somewhere in my lab for maybe 2 years. I finally decided to do something with it, hoping it was going to become something cool.
I called this project “The Resurrected Bird” because it was an unfinished (dead) project.
When I found the skull, it was half covered with copper and conductive paint. It remembered me those times when I was not very good at electroforming, struggling to find the right mix for Conductive Paint and the way to adjust Electroforming Solution.
Then I choose an Amethyst crystal to make it cool and a pair of feathers to give it wings and get it ready to fly again.
To sculpt and modeling it, I'm using Silicone brushes and few more modeling tools. I can create shapes and textures to make my piece more organic.
While the Apoxie dries, I prepare the feathers to give my bird a cool Boho looking.
A 0.6 mm copper wire is perfect to make eyelets. I'm bending it in shape with round nose pliers and then wrap it around the feathers tips to make a winding effect.
I'm giving the feathers a first coat of conductive paint by dip them in to the container.
With a brush, I'm adjusting them to give a better look.
And leave them to dry on my DIY drying rack.
A second coat is necessary and, since I don't want to lose the shape by dipping it again in the Conductive Paint container, I'm gonna use the Airbrush. It will give it a thin layer of paint and I will also keep the original texture of the feather.
Liver of sulfuris the chemical substance used to color copper. It oxidizes the metal. Coloring metals withliver of sulfurit'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.
Since this needs to be black, I left it for almost 10 minutes. To stop the reaction, I dipped it in thebaking sodasolution.
Liver of sulfurhas 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 withbaking sodaor leave it to evaporate before flushing in the drain. It's a toxic substance, we don't want to contribute to pollution.
Let's now remove the black patina to highlight the copper.
For this step, we need a Rotary tool such as a Dremel but, any other brand is gonna be good as well. A respirator mask is mandatory, we don't want to be breathing the black oxide dust that is also toxic like the liver of sulfur.
To remove the black patina, I'm using a 220 grit brush, the red one. The gray one is 2000 grit and it's for shines. It doesn't remove the black, but it's gonna make it shine.
The last step is mounting the hardware. The feathers on both sides, and a chain with a clasp.
I hope you like it and I wish you grasp something inspiring for your new projects.
Watch the video I have on YouTube, and please subscribe for more tutorial like this one.
Sadly, this bird is not gonna fly anymore, but our imagination can always do.
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.
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.
After being hammered, the copper become too hard to be shaped, so I'm gonna annihilate my two pieces with a torchto get them soft enough to be worked. Then quenching in water and clean fire scales in pickling solution.
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.
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.
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.
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.
