From the first part of the workshop at Nechamkin Silver Studio
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From the second half of the workshop at Nechamkin Silver Studio  I spent this weekend finishing the silver Koi Kuff and that entailed patina, bending, cutting out the leather for the cuff, adding the snaps and then riveting the medallion to the leather. But this blog post is about patina. Producing a Liver of Sulfur (LOS) patina is alchemy. Especially with Fine or Sterling (I don’t use Argentum so I don’t know about that) If the metal is not clean, you will have areas with no color Too much LOS and the metal will go grey and black almost instantly. If the water is too hot the colors will change really fast and again you can get a grey or black patina. If everything is JUST right – water temp, clean metal, amount of LOS – it is a Goldilocks moment. The colors you can get will be perfect. The only thing you may not like is where you get the colors. Here is the picture of the first patina I had on the Koi. It really is perfect and I should have stopped there.  But I saw blues. I wanted blue and I so I went back to the LOS and dipped some more.r. And the blues that appeared were amazing.  But after I cleaned the koi and water I realized that the deep blues were also in the fish, around the scales and I saw that the koi was getting lost. It was no longer the focus of the piece, the BLUE was. I then used Jax Blackening solution to darken the areas around the scales (sorry no picture) but the liquid dropped on the water in two places and the back ground patina was ruined. At this point I had to remove it ALL and start over. This time I decided to add the black, around the fish, first as then the LOS on top of the back would not make a difference. I mixed up my LOS and started dipping and I realized that the LOS was too strong as the gold was developing too fast and it moved past blue to the blue gray. It was time to start over AGAIN. I made a very weak LOS solution with cooler water and started to dip. The colors started to develop and slowly the gold appeared and then blues around the rim. I rinsed and let it dry and then I knew I should stop. I then sealed it; which will darken the colors but if you go slow, and not flood the piece, the colors will stay. Then it was bending and riveting. Here are the picture of the final time . The medallion has been bent and riveted to the leather cuff. |
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