As an admirer of the fantasy worlds like LOTR, Witcher and Skyrim I aimed to create a pendant that would feel out of this world. After few pages of sketches I selected the one I feel connected with the most.

The overall idea is to make this pendant in 2 parts: a main upper frame and a detachable lower frame with a USB drive.

Preparing the USB Drive

The core of the pendant will be a USB drive. I chose a GoodRam UPI2 because of its rigid design. After removing the plastic parts you got a clean full metal USB stick with little grip bumps on the sides.

The USB Basket

First of all the USB drive needs some casing to be a part of the pendant. It is just a small box which will hold the YSB drive firmly by its grip bumps and some glue.

To build this basket I use 1.0mm wire. I cut 4 for pieces 36mm length and marked 4 bending points with sharpie. To simplify the process a bit a hold all 4 wires together and carve grooves using a square file. These grooves will make it much easier to bend the wires into rectagular rings.

Once the rings are bent into the rectangular rings it is time for the first soldering. I place the rings on the soldering blocks and apply flux on the joints as well as on the corner points. At this step I use medium solder to close the rings and reinforce the corners.

The next step is to attach these 4 rings on top of each other to form a hollow basket. Since they are made out of a round wire it is a good idea to grind them a bit in order to have more flat surface to make the connection stronger. I lay a sheet of 800 emery paper on my desk and grind all the rings a little to get some flat surface.

I stack 4 rings together and use some steel wire to hold them in place. Heated up with the torch I user solder pick to apply some medium solder to the joints between the rings.

The last piece of the basket is the lid. I just cut 6 pieces of the same 1mm wire to match the lenght of the hollow basket. Then I soldered them together to form a somewhat flat cap. You might as well saw the rectangular lid out of silver sheet.

In the end of this step the lid is soldered to the hollow basket. Remember to flatten the lid and file the basket endges for a stronger joint. Once the soldering is done we have a nice silver basket where the USB drive should fit. I recommend trying it with side without the bumps, otherwise you would have a hard time taking it apart. Don’t worry if the basket is too tight or too loosen – it will be fixed later on when installing the USB drive into the basket.

The Lower Frame

The lower frame of the pendat is the decorative part which will be detacheable form the main upper frame. The decorative structure consists of one central piece made of 1.2mm wire and two identical outer pieces made with 1.0mm wire. All three pieces will have a common pointy joint at the very bottom and six connection points to the USB basket on the opposite side.

I mainly use pliers and cutters to cut and bend wires into the shape following the design sketch. Once all 3 decoration pieces are ready I solder them together by their pointy parts. It is important to join these pieces only at the pointy part so that it is possible to spread them wide enough to attach to the USB basket. In order to not solder the piece where they shouldn’t be I used a piece of scrap silver as a separator.

The USB Frame

It is time to complete the lower part of the pendant. The lower frame will be soldered to USB basket in 6 connection points: 4 corner points and 2 on the center of the basket lid.

First I mark where the connection points will be on the basket lid as they must be slightly grinded to ensure a strong joinery. I use my engraver with a round burr to carve two small dimples 4 mm from each side at the center line. I also file a bit from each corner of the USB basket to make soldering easier.

The central decorative piece is getting soldered first as it will serve as a stem for the whole frame. I use tweezers to hold the decoration frame on top of the USB basket. It takes a while to bend wires to make them fit tightly to the dimples I made earlier. I still use medium solder for the central peice connection.

Once the central piece is soldered to the basket it is easier to maneuver the outer decoration pieces to fit the corners of the USB basket. I use steel wire to hold them in place while soldering. Since these are made with thinner wire I use easy solder to ensure the wires and the exisitng joints do not melt.

The last step for the lower part is to add clasp bumps on each side of the USB basket. These bumps (lack of a better word) are just silver spheres where the “figure 8 calsps” will click on to hold the lower frame. So I use 2 simlar piece of 1mm wire about 12 mm each and melt them with my torch. The surface tension force dose the magic and turn them into an almost perfect silver balls.

I mark the middle of the basket on each side and carve out dimples to place the balls. Then I use tweezers to hold the entire frame on the side and place a silver ball into the dimple. It is a good idea to put some extra flux and use a larger chunk of easy solder before applying the heat. This way solder will distribute itself evenly and the joint will be strong.

The same operation is done on the other side of the USB basket attaching a second silver ball. Once all the soldering is done the lower frame takes a hot citric acid bath to remove the firescale.

The Upper Frame Triangles

The upper frame basically consists of two identical elements on the back and front sides. A side itself is just a fusion of 2 triangles – a larger and a smaller one. Hence, in total there are 4 triangles to be crafted separately and then joined together.

I start with a larger triangle. I cut a piece of 1.2mm wire for a single side of a large triangle as per the sketch. Then I use this piece as a template to cut another 5 pieces of the same length to get 6 in total, 3 for each large triangle.

It is very important to grind off a tip of each wire to simplify soldering. The point here is to maximise the surface two pieces of wire will connect to each other. So I preapred all 6 piece of wire and soldered them in pairs to form 2 large triangles.

The process is similar for the smaller triangles. The difference is that the lower side of the triangle is smaller and I use 1mm wire this time. Again, make sure to grind the tips either with engraver or a flat file, otherwise the joint won’t be as good.

Once there are four triangles it is time to merge them into two. I place smaller triangle on top of the larger one and mark the points of where they interlay. Then I use a fine burr to cut grooves in the larger triangles so the smaller one could sink in them. When the triangles are lined up it is time to reinforce the interlaying points with medium solder.

The result of this step is two star-ish flat wireframes.

Assembling the Upper Frame

Until now the main frame is just a couple of flat wireframes. It is time to go 3D to make room for a USB drive to penetrate into. The idea is to have back and front sides of the upper frame on top of each other with some space in between.

The trick here is to connect the central tips of the wireframes with a 1mm piece of wire about 30mm long. Bending this wire will make it possible to align wireframes on top of each other ensuring enough space for USB drive in between.

To make sure the USB drive can sit comfortable inside the upper frame I decided to add a cage. This cage is made with 4 rectangular rings identical to the ones I made a USB basket with.

The culmination point of the upper frame assembly is aligning the wireframes, adding the USB cage and soldering all of these toghether. There are multiple connection points and it is important to solder each one of them to ensure stiffness of the pendant. I use a lot of steel wire to hold all the pieces together while soldering. It also helps to protect already existing joints from the heat.

Clasp Hinges

At this point there are 2 parts of the pendant ready but with no way to hold on to each other. The mechanism to hold them together will be based on standard bracelet clasps, a.k.a. “figure 8 safety clasp”.

First of all I need a hinge on each side of the upper frame where the clasp will be attached to. I also need a piece of wire to attach a hinge to. So I just cut a piece of 1.2mm wire and solder it where the large triangle intersects with USB cage. Same operation is done on the other side of the upper frame. At this point I thought that it would look better if I join the tips of the back and front large triangles together on both sides. It does look much nicer.

To make a hinge I take a piece of 1.2mm wire anneal it and flatten it out with a hammer on a tiny anvil. Then I use another piece of 1.2mm wire to wrap the flattened wire around to form a little loop. This loop is then goes to the spot I prepared for the hinges on the upper frame.

The end of this step is almost assembled pendant ready for clasps to be added.

Polishing

Since the most of the soldering is done it is time for polishing. There are many ways to polish a piece of jewellery but in this case I use a rotary tumbler. This is jsut a barrel with tiny steel balls that lightly hit the silver piece hunderd of times with each rotation. I usually run the tumbler for an hour and the result always astonishes me.

Not only the tumbling polishes off the imperfections on th silver piece, it also make it stronger by a process called work hardening. Taken out of the tumbler the pendant is ready for some hand polishing, adding clasps and setting the USB drive.

Setting the USB Drive

Only when all the heavy operations like soldering and tumbling are done it is safe to set our USB drive into the basket. I use a tiny bit of two component epoxy glue to fill the basket and place the USB drive inside.

In case if the drive does not fit in the basket I use engraver to grind its internal walls to make more room. I always check the fittness by inserting the fron side of the drive into the basket. If it goes in smoothly then it is good to be set with a glue.

The Clasps

The clasp is just a wire loop curved in a way to click on the bump. I cut about 70mm of a 1mm wire and form a U-shape. Then it goes into the clasp hinge I attached earlier to the upper frame. While on the hinge I use pliers to bend the clasp wire in a kind of 8-shape pattern to give it some flexibility to be able to click onto the bumb on the USB frame.

I intentionally leave a longer tail on the clasps to give them a final bend contouring the decorative elements of the USB frame. In order to complete the clasp I solder the tail together with an easy solder and throw the entire upper frame into a citric bath.

Stone Setting

With the clasps in place I could consider that the pendant is completed. But something was kinda missing. Since this is a jewellery piece I decided to add a gemstone – a beautiful square black onyx.

The only possible option to atatche a stone I see here is a prongs setting. This is one of the simplest yet trickiest setting option. So I mark 4 spots where the prongs will be attached to. The prongs will hold some load so the spots for them are selected where frame wires intersecting to add strength.

I used engraver to grind the spots a bit to ensure good joints. Then a took 2 pieces of 1mm wire and bent them in a horseshoe manner. This way it is easier to solder the prongs.

Once soldered I cut off the top arching parts of the horseshoe shaped additions and file the tips to smooth them out. The last accord is to put the stone in its place and gently bend the tips of the prongs so they embrace the onyx tightly.

When the stone is set the only thing left to do is to clean up the pendant with a toothbruch is a soapy water, rinse it and wipe it dry to make sure that moisture would neither damage silver wires nor the USB drive inside it.

The post Fantasy USB pendant with black onyx appeared first on Slavik LTD.

There was a lute on my colleague’s desk. You don’t see this kind of artifact on a common Thursday in the tech company office. Rather in a video game or a fantasy movie. Fighting my introverted nature I managed to use the lute to kick off a conversation. It turned out to be a great one: I learned about the lute, a shooting range for longbows in the nearby park, a massive fantasy convention in Poland called Pyrkon and that his wife has recently published an original fantasy book about Evi’Deth.

Driven by curiosity as well as willing to support a fantasy world I ordered a copy of this book as a gift for my wife (who also happened to be a writer and a fantasy genre enthusiast). It was only after I learned that there is also an audio version of this book available. To be honest I’m not a huge fan of audiobooks, but this one is not at all an ordinary one. This book is narrated by an incredible voice actor well known for the polish voice of Yennefer in The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt video game!

Inspiration

It was mindblowing to listen about the adventures of Evi’Deth in the incredible voice of Yennefer of Vengerberg. There was an episode where the main character buys an unusual looking silver pendant shaped as a longbow with a marvelous labradorite gem. In that instant a thought rushed through my mind: “That would be an excellent project for me to try!”.

I did have a labradorite cabochon in my treasure chest but I have never crafted anything resembling a longbow. Damn, I don’t think I’ve ever seen one in real life. This is where imagination is the key: if you can construct something in your head there is a chance it is achievable in reality. Plus I can always reach out to Skyrim for some fantasy longbows inspiration (thank you Bethesda)!

Sketching

My first sketch wasn’t too pretty but it was enough to kick off a conversation. I reached out to the author asking if this would be okay to make jewellery based on her book. The answer I got was so enthusiastic it gave me extra inspiration to really push my creative skills.

After about 20 sketches I felt like it’s getting somewhere. First I set on the idea to set the gem on the arrow which would spin – how cool would that be? But my engineering backgroung rejected this stunt as the gem woul dend up looking downwards most of the time. Perhaps I will get back to this design once I figure out the balancing or some ratchet mechanism to hold the stone in a good looking position.

I accpeted the compromise of having a no moving parts in the bow and selected an option I liked. The grip would be slick and the limbs on the contrary should be rather large to fit in the filigree decorative elements. I will make the string with a twisted 0.6 wire and the pendant bail will be attached to the top nock. The arrow would go through the grip and be firmly soldered to it and to the string to safely hold a gem.

Crafting bow handle

Where does the longbow production start? I didn’t know either. So I began with making a grip – a central element the archer holds the bow by. I took a 0.8mm wire and tightly wound on a thin awl tool, soldered and then squeezed in my Stanley vice. Becuase it is hollow the first elements of the bow limbs will partially fit inside it. It will give a great structural strength when soldered.

The rest of the bow limbs are made with a 1.0mm wire. I usually cut wire in a slightly longer pieces to then remove the excess after soldering. But when I soldered the first element to the grip I really liked the way it little thorn looked. On both nocks of the handle I added loops: the top one is for the bail and the lower one is just for symmetry. Since the limbs are to be decorated I postponed soldering the grip because it would lift up the elements making them much harder to work with.

Applying filigree

Everything is prettier with a filigree. A fellow pro jeweller told me this once and I cannot disagree. For filling the spaces in the bow limbs I used a 0.9 filigree wire. This stage is very time consuming as I try to put loops of thin twisted wire inside a wireframes. I usually use a pair of high precision tweezers and an awl tool for this operation. Once all the spaces filled I solder them in with a soft solder keeping an eye on both sides of the element. Only when the decoration is completed I solder bow limbs to the grip to get a beautiful bow handle.

String attached

The most difficult part is completed. Or so I thought. Now it is time to attach the string and put an arrow in the knee bow (TES fans would probably find this one funny). For the string I twisted and soldered a loop of a 0.8 wire. I made slight grooves on both nocks of the bow handle where the strings would go and soldered it with medium solder. So far the results were rather promising.

Now what about the arrow? It must be attached to the grip on one side and to the string on the other. And it should hold the gemstone. The easiest option would be just cutting through the side of the grip and solder the arrow inside, but it would probably ruin the aestetics. I could also make the arrow with separate chunks of wire: this would keep the grip intact but I wasn’t sure I can align them quite right.

The compromise was to drill a hole through the center of the grip and push the arrow inside it. The tricky part is that the arrowhead wouldn’t fit in the hole so it has to be attached later on. So first I prepared a bezel for my labradorite gem and soldered it on the headless arrow. Then the arrow went through the hole in the grip and sat tightly on the bowstring. Only when it was perfectly aligned and fixed in position I trued to solder the arrowhead. It wasn’t easy to get this right because the end of the arrow was lifted up a little and there was no way to fix the arrowhed in a third hand.

Setting the stone

Thankfully I managed to properly attach the arrowhead in its rightful place. Then I fill up all the arrow joints with extra soft solder once again just to be certain. The last soldering operation was to attach a bail to the top nock of the bow. The bail itself is just a loop of 0.8 wire filled with filigree and folded in the middle – pretty much the same I made for the Foxy pendant a while ago.

Once all soldering is done and the pendant is after the acid bath, it is time to set some stones. This time there is only one stone to set, but this labradorite cabochon is just marvelous. Before the final setting I run a final fitnes check by placing dental floww in a bezel. During the soldering, tumbling and polishing the bezel might deform so you might have to straighten it or even grind off the inner walls a little.

Finally the gem fits perfectly and I can get it set with my bezel pusher. This is a long and meticulus part of the process. I don’t use glue in my jewellery and want to make sure the stone sits firmly in its place. After this step is completed I do some final polishing, cleaning and a well-deserved photoshoot.

The result

If you like the things I create you might want to browse around my Etsy

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Delve into a world where fantasy meets innovation with my Enariel pendant. This exquisite piece combines the artistry of elvish and celtic design elements with the functionality of a 64GB USB drive, offering you both beauty and utility in one elegant package.

A creation journey

Being a huge fantasy genre fan I always have this desire to bring some of its elegancy into our world. Also I want my jewellery to be more than just a mere decoration. This is where the USB drive part comes in.

Once a spark of inspiration lands in my mind it takes me hours of sketching to get it out.

I select the most promising draft and start crafting the separate elements accordingly. The overall idea is to make this pendant in 2 parts: a main frame with a gem and a detachable USB drive.

The USB drive part

The bottom part of the pendant is essentially a basket for a USB drive with decorative frames. I chose a brand new Goodram UPI2 64GB nano USB drive. This particular model is awesome for such projects because its plastic case is not an integral part of the drive itself. After removing the plastic parts you got a clean full metal USB stick with little grip bumps on the sides.

I used 1.0mm wire for the central frame and 0.8mm wires for everything else.

The main challange here (and the excitement) is that the elements must be assembled in 3D instead of a flat piece. I solder the central frame first and two auxiliary ones on both sides right after. I figured that it is easier to solder all 3 frames at the bottom point and then attach it to the USB basket.

The main frame

I had an itching desire to create something spiky. It was probably inspired mostly by the world of Witcher and Elder Scrolls where you can often loot some cool artefacts left by ancient civilisations. Hence, the idea boils down to have two wire triangles curved inwards attached to a cage where a USB drive would come in.

Together these triangles would create a frame stiff enough to hold a detachable element firmly. I used 1mm thick silver wires for that purpose, but it turned out that 0,8mm would work just as well. So I would solder 2 out of 3 pairs of vertexes together leaving the last pair at the bottom where the USB part would be inserted.

Only at a later stage of the project I thought that a gemstone would make it all look even cooler. Luckily I had this gorgeous carnelian cab lying around for quite some time that I purchased in a small mineral shop in Poland. A bezel setting was not an option as it would ruin the airy feeling of the entire design. Thus I simply marked four points on the frame as symmetrical as possible and soldered prong wires.

One of the most important things of the entire pendant is the way its parts are holding together. The connection must be strong enough to ensure that the bottom part would not fall off easily. On the other hand it should be easy to operate. I had to get through few iterations until the mechanism was good enough. I used simple bracelet clasps firmly clicking onto the blobs soldered to the USB basket.

The result

After some extensive polishing and tumbling I set the carnelian on the prongs and bent the ends of clasps to kinda outline the bottom frame. I am happy with the end result and also I learned few things along the way so this experiment can be considered successful.

You might also wanna check the video of the Enariel pendant:

Cha-ching!

Another major evidence of success and recognition of me as an artist is that the pendant was sold!

My artistic ego is skyrocketing!

Even more so, my artwork was also bought as a birthday gift! I guess that the artistic fulfilling sensation ain’t getting better than that

If you like the stuff I create make sure to check my Etsy store SlavikLTD.

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