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A Tisket, A Tasket: Round and Pear Shaped Baskets
A classic of the jewelry world, the basket setting has enough tiny solder joins to be a little daunting. We’ll get you over the hurdles and create two common variations. First, a standard four-prong basket for round faceted or cabbed stones. Next, we refine the traditional basket by blending sheet and wire prongs to bring a more elegance to a faceted pear setting. The skills learned for these two shapes can be extrapolated to more complex forms.
Students who like a finished project from their classes may want to buy a pair of matching rounds and earring wires or posts, and/or a chain.
IMPORTANT: Students who want to work along with the class should watch this video to modify a pair of cross-locking tweezers in advance of the workshop.
For more information about virtual courses, visit our Virtual Course FAQ page.
Meet the instructor
Rachel Morris is an artist and educator with 20+ years’ experience in bench jewelry, fabrication, and design, who enjoys a constantly evolving approach to her own work, as well as bringing the joy of metalworking to others through her teaching. She holds a Master of Arts in Teaching and has studied metal arts under John Cogswell, James Binnion & Chris Ploof, Jayne Redman, Joanne Conant, Kate Wolf, Victoria Lansford, Cynthia Eid and others. Rachel has been a Halstead Design Challenge finalist, an Art of the Northeast finalist, and displays in galleries and teaches metalsmithing on both the east and west coasts. She has shown at nationally renowned craft shows such as Kimball Arts Festival, Art in the High Desert and Paradise City Arts, and is a past president of the Creative Metal Arts Guild of greater Portland, in Oregon.
View Rachel's work at www.eclecticnaturejewelry.com and on youtube at https://www.youtube.com/@eclecticnaturejewelry
Materials & Tools
The following supplies will be used for course demonstrations and objectives. A suggested item and/or vendor has been provided below for reference. Click the vendor name (in red) to be redirected to a page where you can find the item. The quantities needed for each item are listed first. If ordering, please be aware that some items may come in larger quantities than needed for this class. We recommend not opening an item's packaging until the day of the workshop. Student participation during or in-between class sessions is strongly encouraged but not required - observers are welcome.
Raw/metal materials:
1 x 8mm Round stone – Facetted or well-cut cab
CZs are good for practice (RioGrande)
1 x Pear stone – Facetted – No smaller than roughly 10x7mm, but larger is better for your first project – make sure it doesn’t have an overly round belly (pavilion) (RioGrande)
1 x 12-24” - round wire, 16ga (optional – more for bail/jump rings) (RioGrande)
Scraps – sterling silver sheet, 22ga (need c. ½” x ½” piece) (RioGrande)
Basic Hand Tools:
- 1 x flat nose pliers (RioGrande)
- 1 x snips / flush cutters (RioGrande)
- 1 x jewelers saw (RioGrande)
- 1 x pack saw blades - 2/0 or thinner (RioGrande)
- 1 x burlife / bee's wax (RioGrande)
- 1 x bench pin (RioGrande)
- Various needle files, especially barrette or flat, triangle, square, and round (RioGrande)
- Recommended: Larger barrette file for prong finishing (RioGrande)
Basic Soldering/Torch Set-up:
- 1 x fireproof area - steel sheet, tiles, etc. (Amazon or Home Depot)
- 1 x Solderite™ pad / pan with pumice (RioGrande or RioGrande)
- 1 x compressed charcoal block - hard (RioGrande)
- 1 x torch - Smith mini, Silversmith, or butane (RioGrande or RioGrande)
- 1 x #0 or #1 torch tip - if getting Silversmith (RioGrande) - recommend smaller torch tip
- 1 x striker or lighter - Silversmith system has one (RioGrande)
- 1 x soldering tweezers (RioGrande)
- 1 x soldering pick (RioGrande)
- 1 x 3rd arm (RioGrande)
- 1 x cross lock tweezers (RioGrande)
- 1 x paste flux (RioGrande)
- 1 x copper tongs - for pickle (RioGrande)
- 1 x Hard and Medium solder (chip recommended but can be made from wire) (RioGrande) or (RioGrande)
- 1 x pickle - sodium bisulfate or citric acid (RioGrande or Amazon)
- 1 x brass bristle brush (RioGrande)
- 1 x crock pot or lidded glass container (RioGrande or Amazon)
- 1 x tempered glass container or sink - for quenching and rinsing
- 1 x small brush - for flux
- 1 x liquid hand soap - for cleaning metal
Other Tools:
- Pliers, especially half-round, flat (traditional or parallel jaw)
- Measuring tools (square, dividers/calipers, ruler) (Amazon)
- Prong pusher or old plastic toothbrush handle modified to be a pusher (RioGrande)
- MODIFIED Cross-locking tweezers (video of modification) (RioGrande)
- Sharpie marker (fine point)
- Safety gear
Optional:
- Optional: Circle template with divider marks (or print the paper template Rachel provides)
- Optional: Stonesetting and/or hart burs and flex shaft