Hello Everyone!

I bet your wondering where I've been. Interesting story...well, no not so interesting actually. My internet connection has been down for well over a week. No interenet connection, no blog. You never realize how much you depend on the internet until you don't have it. I couldn't update my blog, couldn't read my newsgroups, couldn't answer emails, couldn't update my web page....nothing! What a bummer. But all that's changed. My internet is back up and running.

Well, we had another great class this weekend. This time Kim and I were in Cleveland Ohio at Grand River Beads. What a wonderful shop! The shop owner Eva has put together a great shop with a wonderful classroom area in the basement. Cool thing is she loves jewelry and is interested in exploring all of the different techniques used to create it. Her classroom area has just about every tool imaginable. She also has some greatstudent too. All of them have a great passion for jewelry making. All of them made some beautiful pieces of jewelry this weekend.

On the second day of the class I taught the students how to fuse Argentium Sterling Silver. We made a pendant that had a fused outer ring on it. The bail that we used was a premade sterling silver bail purchased from Rio Grande. To get the bail on the outer ring it has to be put on outer ring first, then fuse the wire ends together. This is kinda tricky. You have to position the bail and the outer ring in such a way so the two don't touch. If they touched you run the risk of fusing them together. HERE"S THE COOL TIP...One of the students suggested applying white out (liquid paper) to the bail. Painting whiteout on the piece that you don't want fused supposedly prevents the two pieces from fusing together. Guess what? It works. It seems that a chemical in the whiteout prevents the metal from conducting heat. If you can't bring both pieces of metal to the melting point, you cant fuse them.

So guess what I'm buying this week? A ton of liquid paper.

'til next week.

Jim McIntosh