Sharilyn Miller is one of my favorite wire jewelry designers and instructors.  I credit her with introducing me to bail forming pliers.  She has a wonderful idea with her Fisherman's Cuff wire work bangle tutorial over on her blog.  I love how she used a very, very thick gauge copper wire as the form underneath.



She then used sterling silver coiled wire sections coupled with wire netting on top of the copper form. The result after patination is wonderful as the copper darkens while the sterling silver parts can be polished to reveal some of the original shine.

The only hiccup would be if you cannot get already soft thick gauge copper as you will have to anneal the hardware store variety. Annealing involves heat softening metal with a torch.  Then cleaning it off with an acid solution (pickling) etc.

I also like her tip on how to hasten the patination process if the liver of sulfur (LoS) gel is too slow. Also consider using Gun Blue solution which doesn't have some of the issues of LoS (see link below).

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Original Post by THE BEADING GEM
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