Skip to main content

Copper Bangle With Ceramic Bead Tutorial


I've been meaning to make some copper bangles with ceramic beads for a while now. I bought some pretty pinkish and green ceramic beads a while ago and they've sat in my bead box patiently waiting for their moment of glory. It has now arrived!
I decided to photograph how I made the bangles in the hope it will inspire someone/anyone to have a go. It's an easy project and as long as you use ceramic or lampwork beads or anything that has been kiln annealed you should find the beads behave themselves during soldering and don't explode.


The most important thing to consider before you start is to make sure your bead hole is big enough for the wire you are going to use. The holes in these pink ceramic beads were a little bit smaller than the 2mm wire I used so I made them bigger using a round needle file. I tried various methods for enlarging the hole - using a drill bit and ball burr with my Dremel but they didn't do a lot so I stuck with using the file.


Form and solder a bangle as normal - I made the diameter slightly bigger than the normal diameter for a medium sized bangle to allow for the bead. Shape and texture the bangle to the finish you want. If you hammer texture leave a gap over the the solder join as it will be easier to clean up the join after resoldering. Use a saw to cut through the solder join.


Use your bracelet mandrel and mallet to shape the bangle so there's some overlap at the ends - this creates  some tension when you put the ends together and helps to make a better join for resoldering.


Open up the bangle sideways so you don't distort the shape and slide the bead onto one end. Slide the bead round so it sits opposite the join and manipulate the two ends so the join is tight. Soak in pickle for a few minutes. The beads are unaffected by the pickle.


I find the 2mm gauge wire is prone to moving as it's hard to get much tension to hold the join firmly together so I use T-pins to hold it in place. I put the honeycomb board on top of a fibreboard block as I can push the pins through the holes in the top block and then into the fibreboard underneath. This way is much less messy than just using the fibreboard block on it's own!
Keep the bead opposite the join and hanging over the edge of the soldering block at the back. Solder as normal keeping the flame near the join and away from the bead. Allow to cool naturally as quenching could cause the bead to crack. Once cool pickle and rinse.


File and sand the join taking care not to push the bangle out of shape.


Once the join is cleaned up you need to texture the area over the join to match the rest of the bangle. Use the bracelet mandrel but hold the bangle so the bead isn't in contact with the mandrel as you texture over the join. You'll probably find the bangle has gone out of round slightly as you've resoldered and cleaned up the join. You can use the mandrel to reshape the bangle but again keep the bead away from the mandrel. I hold the bangle at a higher point than normal on the mandrel so the bead isn't touching the mandrel and use my mallet to shape the bangle as I turn it to get it as round as I can. You can also tweak it with your fingers. Thicker gauge wire is likely to hold it's round shape much better.


Use a mallet and steel block to flatten the bangle keeping the bead hanging over the edge to prevent it breaking. This will also help to work harden the wire.


Use a pan scourer and washing up liquid to remove any grease from the bangle then oxidize in liver of sulphur. Clean up with wire wool. Tumble to polish and work harden. I tumbled these bangles for over an hour which didn't affect the ceramic beads at all.


A simple project but I hope it's proved interesting! My next quest is to find some larger hole ceramic beads to use with thicker gauge wire. A good excuse to go shopping!

Comments

Post a Comment

Your comments and questions are very welcome!
If you would prefer to contact me directly please use the contact form on my "get in touch" page.

Popular posts from this blog

Combining Soldering And Enamel

The need to make cute, brightly coloured enamel studs propelled me into the world of combining soldering with enamel a couple of years ago. I knew from reading up on it that it was possible to enamel and solder on the same piece but wasn't too confident I was able to do it back then. It was a slightly embarrassing occurance that made me just get on with - I'd made some enamel studs with glued on stud posts. I'd used 2 part epoxy resin which was a job in itself as it set hard after 5 minutes so I had to keep mixing more up. The finished studs looked ok but that little voice in my head kept asking "are you sure you want to use glue?" I wasn't but didn't think I had any other way to do it so I used glue. I sold my first pair and merrily sent them on their way to Canada. A couple of week later the buyer got in touch to say the stud post had come off one of the earrings and the other was hanging off. I was mortified, apologized profusely and refunded her m

Etching Silver Using Nail Art Stamps

So my love/hate relationship with etching sterling silver continues. I've tried a few times now and always end up with different results most of them not that great to be honest. I've tried connecting the silver and a piece of copper to a 9v battery and also heating the ferric nitrate. Sometimes the results are good sometimes not so good. I currently have an etched piece of silver sheet waiting to be reticulated and rid it of the mess that is the etched "pattern".  I now know that using stamps and Stayz On ink just doesn't work with silver - the time needed to etch using ferric nitrate is much longer than etching copper and the ink starts to wear away after about an hour. This results in the pattern being patchy as the resist is eaten away and the silver ends up quite lumpy and course looking. I have yet to try using pnp paper. I don't know why but it all seems a bit of a faff to do. I don't have a laser printer so would need to find somewhere or

Embossing Metal With My Sizzix Bigshot

I must admit up until a few weeks ago I was vaguely familiar with the name Sizzix but as to what you actually did with a "Sizzix" I was completely in the dark! That was until I stumbled across a video from Vintaj showing how you could use their embossing folders with a Bigshot to create designs on metal ("metal" - my favourite word after chocolate!) I was really impressed and itching to have a go, I just needed a Bigshot........ I waited a few weeks then when the urge to possess one overcame me I went out debit card at the ready..............and the shop had sold out! So I trundled off to The Range on the off chance and came home clutching my own surprisingly heavy pink and black wonder machine. It sat on the dining room table for a couple of days while I waited for the embossing folders I'd ordered online to arrive then the time came to start playing! I started with some pre-cut 24g copper hearts and the Wildflower Vines and the Butterfly Swirls Deco