The Art of Keum Boo - Pinwheel Flower Pendant

Learn how to add beautiful 24k gold to your silver jewellery - use your leftover gold foil!

About the Class

The Pinwheel Flower Pendant class continues my series on Keum  Boo, an ancient Korean technique  that literally translates as “attached  gold”.

In the first class I taught you how the technique works and kept the design fairly simple so that we could concentrate on process  of attaching the gold. In this class I will teach you how to use leftover pieces of foil and add a rolling mill texture to create a simple but lovely piece of  jewellery. This design could easily be adapted to create earrings  instead - or as well!

Keum Boo bonds  24k gold and fine silver together, with no solder  involved, just heat  and pressure. It is a strong permanent bond, hundreds of times thicker than gold plating. As you can see from the  class project a little gold goes a long way, making this a great way of adding the richness of gold to your jewellery without breaking the bank. It is a magical  technique, and one that I never tire of teaching! I love the look on my students’ faces when they realise that their gold design has bonded beautifully onto the silver.

An understanding of the information in the first class in this series, the Golden Butterfly Pendant class, is useful. All of the Keum Boo classes can be found in The Art of Keum Boo course bundle.

You will need:

Materials:
* 13mm by 26mm sterling silver sheet approximately 0.8mm thick
* small pieces of 24k gold Keum Boo foil left over from other projects, enough to cover half of the pendant
* a small jump ring as a bail
* a chain to hang the pendant from

Equipment: (all the jewellery making kit listed here can be used for many different projects)
* Soldering kit - see here for more details
* Ultralite kiln or hot plate
* Steel or agate burnisher
* Wooden coffee stirrer (or similar) and small pot of water
* Texturing hammers
* Steel block and leather cushion (or folded tea towel!)
*Jeweller's saw and bench peg if silver not already cut to size
* Small mandrel
* Tracing paper and pencil
* Ruler, sharpie and scissors
* Jeweller's saw and bench peg
* Flat nose pliers and round nosed pliers
* Emery paper or sanding pad
* Drill and 0.9mm drill bit
* 6" flat file and needle files
* Rolling mill and patterned texture sheet (or texture with a hammer instead)

The rolling mill texture sheet used in this project can be bought here

An explanation of all the tools and materials that you need is included in the videos, and a downloadable equipment and materials list is available with the class.    

This is an easy project to adapt to the size of the materials you have available and to fit your personal style. Make the pendant bigger or smaller, change the shape, make a pair of earrings instead - it's completely up to you! Do remember though that if you want to make a pendant that is much larger you will need thicker silver sheet than I've used here to make sure that your design is strong and will last.

47 minutes long, 13 lessons

Course Curriculum