After completing all the inlay exercises there was some time to explore and practice and revisit some previous setting styles but applied to more complex designs
Engraving was one bonus challenge which required a slightly different graver to the others I had previously used while cutting for setting stones. A much lighter hand control was needed or else the graver would just dig into the metal and would be too deep for scroll work.
After the engraving exercises I can still get the lines more consistent and much more finer if I ever want to move into scroll work in the future. Practice makes perfect right? I decided to go back to practice some stone settings to make sure I had not lost the knowledge and brush up and seeing if I could do it on my own. I found a few practice designs left by Alexandre so I thought to set up the plates ready for setting at least if I did not get to finish them before the 12 weeks was up
Infinity and Trinity single row fillet pave designs low and behold! I had enough time to drill, bur and bright cut, set stones and also clean up the beads after!
I was mostly happy with these layouts except for where the trinity crossed over one another, odd spacing left really long triangle metal left over which I had to make up faux beads to camouflage into the rest of the setting.
Imitation Cut Orthographic design was a 2D pattern where I used coloured stones to help bring out the third dimension. This was a time consuming one to plan out stone sizes I had to vary due to the spacing.
Cleaning up from the corners after setting was extremely tricky and I unfortunately ran out of time to complete this one.
I did as much as I could and in the final minutes managed to patina the metal to bring out the design in all its glory! I'm very pleased with what I managed and I am extremely proud of the skills I had learnt during my 12 weeks course and I hope you think so too!