Working on Metalsmithing

I've had a little slice of quartz druzy for over a year (probably over two years!) that I'd haul out and stare at, trying to figure out the best way to mount and showcase it. In my mind, a bezel setting would detract from the lovely flower-like aspect but I didn't know if I had the skill to do anything else.
It was out being stared at again this week, sitting on a piece of paper on my workbench, and I started to draw settings around it. And thus was born the idea for my most challenging soldering experiment yet.
The diamond-shaped part of the frame and the inner circle are 16 gauge round wire and were fused together.

I'm using argentium and like soldering, if you have a good join, you see a flash and the metal fuses easily. You just have to be careful not to move the torch flame back on the wires because you'll move molten metal the wrong direction and leave you with a lump where you don't want it. The crosspieces had to be sanded down in a notch where they met so there wouldn't be one teetering wire sitting on top of another. It was kind of like doing logs for a cabin, with a notch on the top of one wire and a notch on the  bottom of the one crossing.  I used hard solder to attach them to the frame and then hard again to set the circle on top

of them. In the process, I lost my fear of hard solder. I didn't think my torch was hot enough to melt the solder before it melt the wires. There again, using argentium made a difference and fine silver would have the same properties. You don't need to heat the whole piece to cherry. I just gently heated the whole piece and then concentrated the flame on the join.
The trickiest part was adding the wires for the prongs. I filed one end into points to fit into the four angles but I'd get three sitting properly and when I'd try to place the fourth, they'd all fall out. Many, many times. I was quite amazed when they all soldered (with easy!) in the correct position. Then I cut them, filed the ends, and filed a little notch near the top of each wire. When they were bent enough that the druzy snapped firmly into place, I gently pushed the prongs over the druzy.

Because it's argentium, it didn't get firescale during the soldering and only needed two quick baths in my pickle. I had polished it to a beautiful shine and because I can't leave well enough alone, I decided to try out my new liver of sulphur gel to make the druzy really stand out on the pendant. It worked beautifully and I got amazing blues, greens and rusts that were perfect. And then I put a thin coat of Renaissance Wax over it to seal in the colour. Unfortunately, the wax removed all of the good colours and left the pendant looking like it had been left out in the rain for years.  Unfortunately, I had set the druzy before I applied the wax, so now I just have to figure out how to take it back to my original shiny silver, hopefully without having to remove that delicate druzy.