Every time I finish a marriage-of-metals piece, I promise myself that it is the last time. But I am always sucked back in because marriage-of-metals is just so damn sexy!
Just in case you've forgotten (or, you know, never knew to begin with :), marriage-of-metals is a process of combining different metals via solder to create a single sheet of metal. For this piece, I decided I was going to make a flower, so, I cut the silhouette of the flower out of sterling silver. Then I proceeded to fill the silhouette back in with my other metals, in this case copper and nickle silver.
For this process to work properly, the pieces must fit together perfectly, snugly... you are after all making separate pieces of metal into one piece. If the puzzle pieces do not fit together properly, then your solder will pit or there will be gaps in the picture. Nothing ruins a piece of jewelry faster than shoddy craftsmanship, and unfortunately for marriage-of-metals, there are infinite ways to mess it up.
That's why I try to give it up... every time! But I am forever drawn back in by the siren call of sexiness. I swear, every single time I solder a marriage-of-metals picture together and start sanding... when the picture starts to free itself from the puddles of solder used to put it together, I wanna go all "Risky Business" and start dancing around in my underwear. It's just that awesome.
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