Fathers' Day is coming continued trials of cufflink making.....

...Ah so, where was I? Been a disrrupted few days, would have liked these finished last week. Hey Ho!  Photos of where I'm at so far....

 These are the reticulated rectangles, I decided to flatten them through the mill, just to see what would happen. I really liked the effect, as it left the edges, still textured, while the centres were smoothed out.

An idea to file in head for later....looks like some amoebic form growing over the surface...

 Here I'm playing with different textured shapes to see how they look, I went for little rectangles with tiny holes drilled in them.

 One idea often leads on to another, while I'm playing around with shapes...a bracelet beckons ;)

 These are going to be the squarish shaped backs for the rectangular cufflinks with the textured edges (below). I've made a start on the linky bits, these are going to have 2 flattened linked jump rings ( 1.2mm gauge wire...sturdy and chunkyish). The domed pair will have an 'S' link I think. The length between backs and fronts is usually about 1.5 ish cm....best get back to all the fiddly stuff!

Cufflinks...Fathers'Day is coming...

I've been inspired by inkylinky's blog on printmaking this week. Thought I'd share with you the making of some cufflinks. I really enjoy making these, so many variations and not enough time! I don't use ready made backs, I make my own, that way they're far more interesting and individual, it's all part of the design after all!

Here's a batch of 'organic' circular discs. I rolled the discs through the mill with a pattern I'd made on some copper sheet. It's a dotty and squiggly design. Rolling after cutting out the shapes, means that they become a little distorted and slightly oval. These have been filed and sanded and are now awaiting the linky bits.

I'm also making some rectangular ish shaped cufflinks using textures. This is 1mm gauge and will make quite heavyish cufflinks, but I've used 0.8mm which works well too. I've cut out the shapes, 

they're about 1.2cm x 1.5cm

Then I file and sand them down (left), the ones on the right are stil roughly cut.

Then I've rolled some texture onto odd bits of left over silver cuttings through the mill, then cut these out using my disc cutter. These cufflinks are going to have button shaped backs. These now need the textured discs soldering on....

OOPS! Upside down! I've also reticulated some rectangles of silver, this is heating the silver until it flows and forms ridges...I over did it a bit with these...so may or may not use thise...undecided. I like to play around with odd bits n pieces on my workbench, to see how things will look with a different shape or a contrasty piece added....

Off to Solder these....back later with more pics!