Pickling and Oxidizing Without Chemicals

With so many chemicals out there to protect your metal from fire scale (blackening or charring of the metal when firing), I really wanted to find a safe product to use because of my animals. My children are old enough that I don't have to worry about them touching my products but if you have little ones this is also a great option for you. There have been mixed reviews about the effectiveness with this...but it works for me. It leaves very little fire scale that is easily removed with my dremel or some fine grit sand paper. Now I just wish that I could find a natural flux to use. It's the only chemical that I use while making jewelry.

I use 1/2 cup luke warm water, with about 1/8 cup distilled white vinegar and 2-3 grinds of Sea Salt (using a salt grinder I turn it 2-3 times). I keep it stored at room temperature in a plastic glad container with a lid. After firing and quenching I drop it in the pickling container for about 1/2 hour...you can keep it in there longer to remove more fire scale, but as I've said in previous posts, I tend to be a little impatient! ( You may have to play around with the mixture a bit to find what works for you, but the one listed above is what I use)




For oxidizing there are a few different options chemically, most popular being Liver of Sulfur, again a very toxic chemical. The option I use is eggs. I hard boil 3 eggs, put them in a glad plastic container, crush them with a spoon (shells and all) . Another thing I do is take some stretchy plastic threading for beading or you can use thick thread (you can get creative here), I tie knots in it to act as a stopper or a divider to keep the metal from touching then lay it across the top of the plastic container and put the lid on it. It suspends the metal from the eggs and allows me to reheat the eggs for a darker patina without having to dig out the metal. I normally only reheat the eggs in the microwave once (about 30 seconds) and leave the metal to oxidize for a total of an hour. The great thing about using a clear container is you can decide how dark you'd like your pieces to be. I had a really cool rainbow effect on one of my pmc pieces that I thought about keeping like that but went ahead and let it sit longer to achieve a very dark patina.



These are just methods that I use to give me my own peace of mind and are in no way meant to put someone else down for using chemicals. Actually using chemicals makes the whole process a lot faster, but I just choose to use these methods.

Then in Now.....Photographing Jewelry

This was inspired by a question from a fellow Etsy seller beadinbythesea who asked if I take my photos using a light box or natural light. Though I've discussed this with her personally I thought I'd share it with the rest of you too.

When I first started selling jewelry I had no idea how to photograph jewelry or anything about the camera I was using. Macro?...what's that? A pasta? Laugh all you want but that's exactly what I said!

Below are the photos that show the progression that I made not only with the lighting but with backgrounds too. I originally started photographing on black velvet, but couldn't find any of those photos...must have destroyed them, the lint was so embarrassing! I obviously learned what Macro was after that!

At first I just used the flash of my camera...eek, blinding!

Then I read a tip to use a piece of paper towel or toilet paper to diffuse the flash...okay...got that...much better I can take off my sunglasses now.

Then I got a wonderful light box....oh what did I ever do without it!?! But on occasion I still had problems with the photo's not representing the colors of the stones correctly, but that's what my photo program is for right?

Oooo....but then I discovered natural light...and I haven't looked at my light box since!
There's also a trick to using natural light, at least in my experience...don't take photos in direct sunlight....you might as well have your flash on because when the sun hits the metal...it's blinding! I now take all of my pictures in my home at the sliding glass doors (which faces northwest). I generally wait until about 3 pm...it's when the sun hits the backside of my house perfectly. I honestly don't think I will ever go back to using my light box....sad because it wasn't cheap, but you just can't beat natural lighting!

The camera I use is Samsung S630, it's just a hand held point and shoot, small, and very easy to use. It has a nice Macro setting and ASR (stabilizer), works great for what I need it to do. The reviews weren't so good on this camera because of how fast it goes through batteries, but I just bought rechargeable one's (I get about 2 months of use before having to recharge) and I've never had the problems stated in the reviews.

Many sites say that you need a DSLR to take a decent photo, if you have the money by all means purchase one....but a point and shoot will work just fine if you're on a limited budget.

If you have any questions or suggestions post a comment!