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An Award-Winning Design: Hand-Engraved Oak Leaf Clusters With Opal
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Gemstone quality Spencer Opal was used to design a piece of wearable art (jewelry). The design had to enhance the beauty of the gemstone. The shape of the opal gave the appearance of a leaf shape. So I designed a necklace with a cluster of oak leaves
surrounding the opal.
A regular chain did not blend with the oak cluster, so a multi-leaf oak chain was designed to continue the theme. Once the design was complete, the fabrication process was started. The design was transferred to precious metal.
The age old art of Hand Engraving was used to engrave each oak leaf outline and then the shading and details were added, giving accent to each leaf. For quality engraving, each graver (piece of cobalt steel) has to be filed and meticulously honed to a
surgical blade sharpness. As a graver is used, it is held very steady as the metal is cut away, giving the exact detail desired. Gravers are made in many shapes like knife, flat, ongelette, liners, etc. It is difficult to find anyone who teaches hand
engraving. Usually it is passed down from a craftsman to his apprentice.
Each individual leaf was delicately cut out with a very fine saw blade held by a jeweler's saw. Then each piece was filed and sanded multiple times with finer sand paper each time, giving each piece a very smooth finish. The oak leaves were grouped in a
cluster to surround the gemstone, forming the necklace. A bottom piece of precious metal was cut in a shape to support the leaf cluster and gemstone and then was soldered in place. This process was named by the Hopi Indians "Hopi overlay."
A piece of bezel wire was formed around the opal stone and soldered to the backplate, centering the location of the stone, completing the necklace. The chain was completed by soldering in a small loop called a jump ring to the top of each leaf. Then the
stem of each leaf was then circled to fit through the jump rings to connect the chain together. The chain fasteners were formed from a thicker diameter wire, making a loop and T-bar.
The final process was polishing with tripoli polish and finishing with a fine rouge polish. Once the polishing was completed, the gemstone was mounted. The stone was centered inside the bezel wire which was formed tightly around the edge of the gemstone.
Matching earrings were made of engraved oak leaves in the same gauge precious metal as the necklace.
The final project complemented the Spencer opal and won first place for jewelry design and fabrication in the 1996 Orange County Fair.
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Copyright, 1997 by Dave Jones
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Dave Jones designs, hand engraves, and fabricates in precious metals. He won
First Place in the jewelry fabrication and design competition in both
the 1995 and 1996 Orange County Fairs.
Born and raised in New Mexico, Dave has lived in Colorado and
Arizona as well as California. His southwestern background has
influenced his work as have the artisans and teachers he has studied
with in Southern California and Arizona.
For Information on Custom Design Jewelry, contact Dave Jones at (714) 847-5712
or E-mail pjones@hbuhsd.k12.ca.us
P.O. Box 3242, Huntington Beach, CA 92605
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