Jewelry Designer of fine custom
art jewelry

Making a St Maarten Titanium Gold Pendant

This is what I want. If you are a jeweller that manufactures, this map concept sells well everywhere I have applied it. It is not new, though. Back in South Africa, a local jewellery group started it by making cut out maps of the African continent. These had extra little cut-outs in the actual map, of bushmen, and various species of game found in Africa. I applied the same principle to St. Maarten. They always sell well.

I make a lot of St Maarten maps of all sizes and manners, so I have a few sheets of different sizes copied. This one is about 25mm. I simple draw a large 'master' and then reduce them on a copy machine to whatever size I want.

I glue it onto a plate of white gold  with a clear contact adhesive

And then I cut on the white gold with a mould cutting scalpel, into the gold. This gives me an indelible line when I fuse the white gold.

Then I pierce it out, but  I leave a broad section that will be fused towards the scalpel line.

This picture is from  http://www.meevis.com/jewelery-making-class-making-a-fused-pendant.htm tutorial. It gives the idea for the flame that you need to fuse/melt the white gold. I use a solution on 77% fine gold, 15% palladium and 8% fine silver. It is a nice white gold and fuses well.

The light in the photograph is a bit yellow, but the mixture fuses nicely. Too nicely, in fact. I like fusing to be more rough.

Then I fuse over the white gold with yellow gold, using a piece of wire much like a brazing rod. Care has to be taken not to use to much heat, because otherwise the yellow gold floods the white gold to much. A little bit like what happened in the top left hand corner. Luckily I will be piercing it out there. I make yellow gold wire that has about the same thickness as the piece that I am fusing.

Then I cut out Simpson bay and salt pond like on the map. Apart from the geographical aspect, the blued titanium shows through the cut out spaces and insinuates water..

This is a typical piece of titanium that I will cut my background out of.

I use a thick marker to outline the map and then pierce it out. That is a real schlep job. In this case I am using 2mm thick titanium plate. I use Wd 40 for lubricant. Bees wax works ok and so does a very thin machine oil. In the picture above, I have already started filing the background to make it half round.

After I have filed and sanded the background, I position the gold map and drill the rivet holes one by one. This is important. First I drill one hole and insert a rivet. Then I drill the second hole and insert the rivet. Then I drill the third and last hole, as in this case. This sequence must be followed. If you try mark all the hole and then drill them, they will not be aligned.

I melt a small ball on the rear end of the rivet wire and counter sink the hole drilled in titanium with a small ball frazer. So as I hammer on the front of the rivet, the little ball settles into the countersunk back. That makes for a neat joint.

Here I have started polishing the titanium. I use Dialux green compound. This can be bought a  www.riogrande.com  I do not polish the area that will be covered by the map. Polishing titanium is a mission enough as it is.... The bail is made and I rivet it directly through the titanium. Once the titanium is polished and ultra clean, no dust particles or and water stains it gets blued by heating. I check that it is clean by using an Optivisor. I use a soft, bushy, slightly yellow flame. Any dust or dirt left on the titanium during heating will leave a different coloured blue, thus ruining the surface. When this happens is it back to sanding with 1200 grit and then polishing.

The white gold surface texture I do by using a small ball frazer, (.6mm) The gold wire in the middle of the map denotes the French side and the Dutch side of the island. The map of St.Maarten is completely finished off before it is riveted on.

 I finish the back off with a matt wire brush, or sometimes I sand blast it. The riveting is done last, with great care, because I do not want to mar the surface at all.  If I do, that means taking the whole thing apart and starting over from 1200 sandpaper. This I have done before and it can easily lead to me giving myself a fat smack .:):)....

For those interested in the various trinkets I make from day to day, my blog is http://hansmeevis.blogspot.com. Any questions, comments and suggestions can be sent to hans(at)meevis.com