The Art of Keum Boo - Textured Flower Pendant

Learn how to add beautiful 24k gold to your silver jewellery - using a rolling mill with Keum Boo

About the Class

Find out how to add beautiful gold and a beautiful texture to the same piece of jewellery!

This 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. This time the design has a more complex, delicate cut out shape and a rolling mill embossed texture - just to prove to you just how thick and strong this layer of gold is!

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

BUY THE ART OF KEUM BOO COURSE BUNDLE FOR £150, SAVING £25!

You will need:

Materials:
* 1mm sterling silver sheet to cut one 16mm diameter disc
* 24k gold Keum Boo foil, enough to cut out your desired shape
* 0.8mm - 1mm sterling silver wire for bails
* a chain to finish the pendant

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
* steel block
* Papercraft punch (doesn't have to be a flower!)
* Tracing paper and pencil
* Disc cutter and leather cushion (or folded tea towel!)
* Hammer suitable for hitting disc cutter punches
* Wire cutters and round nosed pliers
* Fine sanding pad or medium radial disc in pendant drill
* 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.  

I have used a thicker piece of silver sheet that I would normally for this size of pendant. This is because the round disc is going to be sent through the rolling mill several times to stretch it into an oval and then to texture it. If you want to keep your disc round then you can start with thinner sheet (0.8mm would be good), and you can always adapt your design to fit the amount of materials you have. Do remember that curving the pendant will give it a little extra strength.

1 hour 11 minutes long, 15 lessons


Course Curriculum

Joanne Tinley

Tutor and Founder of The Jeweller's Bench

The Jeweller's Bench is run by Joanne Tinley. She has been making her own jewellery for as long as she can remember and left her first career as a school teacher to set up business as a  jewellery designer and tutor nearly 20 years ago. She is
self-taught and like many people started with wire and beads. Learning how to solder, however, opened up a whole new world of jewellery making,  one that she is keen to share!

Legal Disclaimer: Every effort has been made to show safe working practices and to discuss health and safety aspects of jewellery making, but in the end I cannot take responsibility for how the tutorial information is used and how safely you work. Take the effort to set up your work area safely right from the start!
All Rights Reserved. No part of this course may be reproduced or shared without express, written consent from the author.

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