How to Make a Nugget Pendant With Recycled Silver

A lot of the things I have learned, I figured out by trial and error. A while back I wanted a “Nuggety” looking pendant, so I experimented and here is what I came up with.

Here is a fun little project if you have a few pieces of silver scrap and a torch. Start with a few pieces of random scrap pieces and bunch them up in a pile. Add a little Handy Flux to the top and when it heats up, the flux will coat all the pieces. Here I start to melt all the pieces with my Mini Torch slowly, careful not to melt them into a “ball”, but just soft enough to make it malleable, like butter.

Once I have the pieces melted into one piece, I reheat the silver with the torch and use a Titanium Soldering Pick to spread the metal around and add texture. Again, heat the silver up just to the point being soft. It is amazing how moldable the silver is at just the right temperature. keep playing with it until you get the look you want. After you are satisfied, place the silver in a pickling solution, I use Sparex.

In this instance, I made a silver circle out of rectangle stock. I made the inside of the circle the same size as the circumference of the silver “nugget”. Solder the nugget inside of the circle., and on this piece I also soldered a silver loop on top of pendant. I filed a flat spot on the loop first to make better contact.

After the piece is all soldered together, I soak it in Sparex for a while to remove most of the firescale, then I tumble it in a Magnetic Tumbler for about 30 minutes.

There you have it, a fun little project made with completely recycled silver and imagination. Come back and we will shine this up, and maybe even add a stone to it.

Thanks for stopping by and hanging out with me today, I hope you are enjoying the journey.

Now go do something fun, and great, and motivating.

Doug