How did I do that?

I know how much a few of my facebook followers (ooh, get me!) like to see how I make something happen.

I thought it might be something to share on here, so that I don’t bore them all with it. Aren’t you lucky!

What you can see in these photos is my kitchen set up for patination.

First everything is laid out, the windows opened and I get prepared. As you can see – my ‘Reuse is better than recycle’ mantra doesn’t just apply to the allotment 😉

I use Liver of Sulphur, which is a very traditional method. It’s a little updated in that it now comes in a gel, so it’s really easy to dilute.

It does still stink though – hence opening all the windows.

I use a tiny amount (about 2.5ml) in a small dish, and add some warm water so I get a solution. I deliberately don’t fully mix it; I like to have differing strengths as I go.

I then paint that onto the area I want to patinate, controlling the colour by a combination of heat and the duration of the solution staying on the item.

.

I then paint that onto the area I want to patinate, controlling the colour by a combination of heat and the duration of the solution staying on the item.

Of course, the word control is perhaps a little ambitious! I often have to remove it and reapply if it goes darker than I want.

The initial colour is a golden yellow, as you can

see on the handles of the fork and trowel shown,

and then it goes through a petrol blue to dark black, which is a traditional oxidisation.

 

When an item has reached the desired colour, I rinse it  and then place it in a solution of sodium bicarbonate (the same stuff I add to my biscuits!) before final polish and a touch of Renaissance Wax, to delay the colour wearing off.

The time it takes to get fully dark sometimes is a bit tedious, so this time I got out my heat embosser tool, and warmed up the silver I wanted to go dark. It was the first time I had done that, but it worked a treat. It’s my new favourite top tip and I’m going to tell all my jewellery pals!

The photo on the left is of all my pieces soaking in their bicarb. solution

The photo on the right (I should try to remember to remove the fushia phone cover before taking photos!) shows a fine silver flower with a ruby – unpatinated – next to a pair of the same style, but larger, with garnets.

The left one is finished, the right needs it’s final buff to remove the excess patination

Here they are in my Etsy listing..

Oooh. That’s a bit in your face isn’t it. Sorry. I’ll try and do better next time. Promise.

Now. How do I share this to FB?!!