Shinium - Brilliance by Design

Generally when joining metal I use sheet solder, which is economical and in most cases, easy and fast to use. But sometimes it can be a pain to get solder in place around a particularly tiny piece, so I thought I'd have a go with silver solder paste  instead. It's a bit more expensive but it lasts for ages. I'm starting out with a plain silver ring , to which I'm going to solder some silver and copper blobs. Blobby blobby blobby! OK, right. Here we go. Excuse my fingernails, I've been testing out gilding nails with copper leaf. It actually worked pretty well, this is a few days afterwards.. Dot punch to start with. Stops the drill skipping off the surface of the ring. Bzzzzzzzz. Only drill a bit into the surface, don't go all the way through. Repeat until lots of holes. This is fine silver casting grain, usually used for melting down prior to turning into other exciting stuff , but this shape is exactly what I want for this ring. Carefull...

OK, so there's a million of these out there. This one is for some friends of mine. It's a Model B Pi running Kodi (previously known as XBMC) with a 1TB disk, wifi etc. Two bits I like and make it a bit different - the handmade wood case, and the switches. The case is cedar and purpleheart, so it looks striking and smells amazing. The big chunky toggle switches are set up to play music, so it can work as a jukebox without needing the TV on to access controls. There's a python script to do this, which I'll detail later. So, without further ado, the build. First up, making the case. I cut some channels into the cedar to slide the base into later (I don't have a full-size router so I did it with my 3KW mitre saw - luckily this is nice chunky wood so I could make those cuts without risking going all the way through). Clamp them bad boys up to the piece of purpleheart that is the front of the box (never enough clamps....) with some woodglue, leave for 24 hours. ...

As requested by someone on Reddit's wonderful /r/crafts subreddit, a short tutorial on gilding. Gilding is not as hard as you might expect, and with a simple beginner's kit , you can get going right away. I suggest purchasing an imitation leaf kit to start with, as messing up gilding aluminium is an awful lot cheaper than messing up with 24k gold leaf! OK, so here are a pair of rings waiting to be gilded. They were made as per the tutorial on making metal rings I did last week. One silver, one copper. One bright and mirror polished, one satin finish. They need to be clean, so no finishing polish or wax just yet. I'm going to use two different gilds on these, in two different styles - but your options are limited only by your skills with a brush and your imagination. Gilding, being an ancient art, has lots of lovely old language associated with it. Gilders don't use glue, they use size. It's basically just glue. I like to use a nice fine lining...

This tutorial will show you the basics of how to make an attractive, modern, wooden necklace decorated with a layer of pure copper.  It's not too hard, but as always don't rush, be careful, check your details and always always always  measure twice, cut once . Things you will need Some wood! Hardwoods are often more exciting than softwoods, check out your local timber yard or online to see what you can find. Because you don't need much, offcuts are good - and can be picked up very cheaply. Tools. I use quite a few here, because I have them - but all you really need is a drill and a saw. You'll need a small drill bit so you can hang your pendant (I use 3mm) and a bigger one to make the hole for gilding.  A range of sandpapers is needed as well, you'll want to go quite fine to get the finish nice and smooth. Gilding size and your choice of metal to gild. I use copper because I like the colour but you can use gold, silver, platinum, brass - whatever you want....