CuForming

Tuesday, February 1, 2022

Nuts Geodes Jewelry Set

Nuts and Geodes have something in common, you crack them open and something awesome pops out of them.

A delicious seed or shiny crystals. With nutshells and crystals, I make these hybrid jewels.

The inspiration came from those little dioramas made inside walnuts. I saw a few of them on the internet and I had to make my version.

For this project, I used this material:

and these tools:

Obviously, the first thing you do is to crack the nuts…. Yeah!!! We need to do it in a way that they get opened symmetrically. For the walnuts is relatively easy. For hazelnuts, we wanna ask for some luck.

After several attempts, I managed to open a few, more than I needed. I start to clean the inside of the shells with wood chisels to remove the soft parts. A little clean with a brass wire brush and to remove hard parts I used my rotary tool with a steel burrs bit.

With a piece of sand paper, I flatted the edges of hazelnuts shells, but this step is not necessary.

Once everything is nice and smooth, I painted the inside of my shells with a Mirror Effect Varnish.
This step is necessary to give some luster to the crystal that we are going to mount inside.

Before we proceed to glue our crystals inside the shells, we need to do some adjustment.
I had these Quartz Crystal points that I bought in stock, and they were too long to be insert inside. I needed to make them shorter. So I start to break some of the smaller ones I had with my flat nose pliers but, I wasn't able to do that with the bigger ones. I needed to change tool.

The best way to cut gemstones is with Diamond cutting wheel. With my rotary tool I cut a few of them and immediately realized that a lot of silica dust was flying everywhere. I could have used a respiratory mask, but the common practice is to use water.

I activate my brain and I made a water tank dropper for my rotary tool (Check the video on YouTube).

In about an hour, I cut enough crystals for the entire set.

To glue them inside the nutshells, I used UV resin.
Patiently, with tweezers, I manage to complete the whole set. I fit in all the crystals and cure them, one by one, under the UV Lamp.

The set is composed of a Pendant, a pair of earrings and a ring.
The hardware for the pendant and earrings is premade. I only need to make a copper ring with some copper wire.

On my anvil, I flatten a bit the copper wire with a ball peen hammer and, with my DIY Texturing hammer, I made some movement on the surface of the ring.

I annealed it with my propane torch and, after quench it in water, I put it in pickling solution to remove all the fire scales.

With a steel mandrel for rings, I bent it in shape to the right measurement. With a rubber hammer, I hit it a little to make it harder. This process is not very important, since the electroformation will make the copper very strong.

It's time to glue the parts together.

Jump rings can be glued with UV resin on the pendant and earrings.
UV light can't penetrate copper or nutshell, so I thought that the best solution for the ring, would be 401 CA Glue. It becomes super strong in less than 15 mins.

After that, the ring had gaps between the copper and the shell that needs to be filled. My favorite product to do this step is Relief paint. It's easy to use, and it doesn't take long to dry.

Next step is graphite paint.
I use a solvent based graphite paint, so it needs to be shaken before any use.

With a brush, I paint meticulously all edges and the front of the shells, being careful not to exaggerate with the coat and cover the natural texture, especially for the walnut.

One hour or more to get the conductivity of the paint activated, and they are ready for a dive in the electroforming solution.

I set my power supply on 0.3 volts without doing any calculation of the surface of the pieces. I had 0.09 amps to start. The amperage will go up once the piece get coated with copper. It's impossible to make a calculation when it's only cover with graphite. For me, measuring inches square and multiply for amps it's a waste of time.

I dipped all the pieces and checked them after 2 hours. As you can see from the picture, the graphite is still visible.

In total, this process took 16 hours to be completed. With low voltage and slow process, you can get better and stronger objects.

After washing the residual copper sulfate with distilled water, I painted all the shiny copper parts with Liver of sulfur. It is a toxic chemical that smell like rotten eggs. Use it in a ventilated area or with a respirator mask.

Usually I dilute it in water and then submerge my pieces in it. This time I wanted to be accurate and paint the edges of the shell without damping crystals in this yellow toxic stuff.

In this way the oxidation occur faster, and after I submerge them in baking soda solution, the black oxide got peeled off of the surface. We will have 3 colors, orange, pink, and gray.

To remove the remaining black oxide and highlight these colors, I used, with my rotary tool, radial bristle brushes.

A 600 grit to get all the black off, and a 1000 grit one to bring up some gloss.

To keep all shiny, I used a transparent lack called “Zapon”. It's a holes filler and it prevents oxidation.
Before any use, it must be diluted with nitro solvent to make it more liquid.

To apply it, I submerge all the pieces for a few seconds in it and then rotate to make a centrifugal effect to remove the excess zapon. It needs at least 2 days for a complete cure.

A pair of hooks for the earring and a chain with a lobster clasp for the pendant complete this project.

I hope you like it. Check the video on YouTube.

Thank you all! CuForming.

Monday, January 31, 2022

DIY water tank dropper for rotary tool

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, so I 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.

Tools I used in this project:

Rotary tool
Diamond cutting wheel
Marker
Knife
a sharp metal stick
Scissors
Electric drill
Cone drill bits or any other kind of drill bits

and materials:

Plastic bottle
fish tank water pump
rubber hose
zip ties
Epoxy resin (must be water-resistant)
aluminum wire or any kind of soft metal wire
Duct tape (if you mess up)

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.

Thank you all! CuForming.

Friday, January 7, 2022

The resurrected Bird

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.

Materials and tools that I used for this project:

Since the skull was half done, I just dip it in the conductive paint to make a dramatic entrance.

Then, with a steel mandrel and a rubber hammer, I created a ring with the 2.5 mm copper wire to hang all the parts in place.

The mandrel I used is a DIY one but it can be also purchased on the internet.

The skull already had a piece of copper wire glued to it, and after I cut it, it needs to be filed.

This is the idea for the project.

I glued everything together with 401 Korean Superglue. It's a medium viscosity CA glue, and it's perfect for this purpose.

I blocked all with a cloth pin and glue them all together.

Holes and crevices needs to be filled. I'm using relief paint, but in this case seems not to be enough.

So I decided to use Apoxie Sculpt Modeling Compound.

Apoxie Sculpt is toxic. It's always a good behavior to mix it with gloves.

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.

Give it an adjustment with flat nose pliers and a little glue to keep them in place until I paint them with conductive paint.

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.

The Apoxie is finally dry, so I can also paint the skull with conductive paint.

And a little bit of cleaning with acetone and cotton swabs to remove Apoxie's stains from the copper.

Time for the electroforming bath.

I'm setting the power supply to a very low voltage, so they can get covered with copper very slowly.

With copper wire, I hooked the pieces on the cathode and, once in a while, I moved them for a better development of the copper coat.

It took me 16 hours to complete the process.

When it was ready, I washed off the electroforming solution residue and go on to the next step.

This piece needs a black patina. I prepared two plastic containers with liver of sulfur and baking soda solution.

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.

Since this needs to be black, I left it for almost 10 minutes. To stop the reaction, I dipped it in the baking soda solution.

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.

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.

I'm using these plastic Radial Bristle Disc Brushes with different grits.

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.