Southwestern Style Sterling Silver Necklace

Step 11 Variations on a theme

A number of the techniques here can be used for other types of chain making, and some variations are obvious. I have also done the wrapping with gold wire--actually, make that "gold filled" wire. "Gold filled" wire is really the reverse of what the name sounds like it should be--it is silver wire with a thicker gold plating on the outside, so it forms like silver, but looks like gold. While I'm not a huge fan of gold, the gold accent on a silver chain looked good. In this case, however, I made it for someone who prefers silver. I should note that, while gold filled wire is pretty good in normal use, you don't want to heat it and you don't want to put it in a polisher. So, you have to wrap after you polish.

Jump rings, in particular, can be knit together in all sorts of ways. One of my favorites is Jens Pins Linkage (JPL3), where each ring added passes through two others to form a sort of spiral. When I am working those, I typically do not solder them, merely bend them into the proper configuration. I would also note that things like JPL3 are very sensitive to aspect ratio--the gauge of the wire related to the internal radius of the ring. Doing that wrong can lead to ugliness. If you want more information on that type of chain making, called maille, see M.A.I.L. The difficulty with soldering those types of links is that there is a high probability of soldering one link to another link unless you are very, very good or very, very lucky. I am neither. Also, the techniques for soldering chains can be used for normal chains as well. I have shown some variations, the one we just did is far left, followed by a variation with 12 ga small links that are left round, followed by a 14 ga JPL3, followed by a simple chain.