Introduction: Jointed Mild-steel Necklace

This is a piece I made last spring at the Crucible's forge space in Oakland. It's a three- or four-piece jointed necklace, made from 3/8" round stock from the scrap bucket. Right now, I use steel jump-rings to connect the C-scroll back piece to each of the front S-scroll pieces, and the folded C-scroll clip holds the front two together. For a simpler look, I can just put a jump-ring or bit of wire to hold the front pieces together where their curves meet.

Process: As usual, I just rough-sketched the design and then started playing around with the pieces. If I make another, I'd start with smaller stock (since these were drawn down to less than 1/4" at their widest), do a more thorough design first, and mock up the 3D curves with wire. Also, it's a pretty impressive amount of trouble to shape very hot iron in complex curves that match one's own neck in a room with no mirror. I had to go through a lot of heat-and-quench cycles for this piece. With that and all the drawing and tapering, I broke one piece, and the clip has some serious cracks in it. A better model would help, as would time to properly anneal the pieces.

Finish: I cleaned off the scale and smoothed it with a grinding bit on a rotary tool. (Dremel + Flexshaft = awesome.) Since the piece is designed to be worn on the skin, I need to keep it from rusting. For the moment, it's been oiled & heated, and that seems to work well enough.