24 Ounce Klean Kanteen 550 Paracord Bottle Cover

This bottle cover or koozie was a recent order and thought I would post some photos of it.  It will be on its way to the land of ice and snow by tomorrow.  Yes, the American south...  I've made these for the 12 ounce Klean Kanteen bottles, Liberty and Nalgene bottles as well.  It seems everyone including yours truly, has their favorite bottle to take along for the ride or hike.  These bottles are fantastic and will keep ice with your beverage for over 24 hours.  I don't have to brew overly strong tea anymore and consider that the ice will melt down and dilute my drink.

The person sent me dimensions for his slightly different bottle and it was very close to the measurements of my 24 ounce bottle.  We decided to go ahead with the measurements he sent for this koozie.  There is over 130' of US mil-spec 550 paracord in this project.  The entire bottle cover can easily be pulled apart for emergency use or you can use some of the cord.  You could then tie off, weave the end down, weave the drawstring back through and your back to having a functional smaller bottle cover or storage bag.

I can make these in coyote and black as well.  The koozies enable you to clip your bottle to a backpack or give it a little extra protection just in case you drop it on a pile of rocks!  Look at it this way, having one of these on your Klean Kanteen is like having a Jeep with a bunch of KC lights all over it!  You just can't go wrong!

Patina

It takes a while to get the patina to grab on the fine silver.  I let those soak and soak in the liver of sulfur.  I've discovered that hanging the pieces on thread makes them much easier to move around in the solution and pull out vs. using plastic tongs.  Also makes for some musical entertainment while rinsing off the metal pieces.  They bump into each other and jingle-jangle!  The silver will discolor a bit, then have the AB look, then go almost black.  I use hard boiled egg on my sterling pieces with stones and pearls.  I wouldn't want to submerge my pretty pearls, opals or semi-precious stones in liver of sulfur.  It takes a while for the hard boiled egg to grab on the sterling.  You can see it just starting to change in this photo.  I'm going to add some wrapped brios to the bottom of some of the fine silver pendants.  A person could either pre-patina some sterling wire or do a gentle patina process of the entire piece one more time before finishing.  There are so many different ways of going about finishing a piece and you just have to find what works for you.  I go through all the various steps, layer the color and I work it right across the finish line!  To get a complete look, you have to take the time and not rush things.  Work through each step from inception to completion, then you'll have something that has the look and layers of a total work.  A total, tiny work.

In the Works...

Every so often, I'll post photos of things in the works...  Believe me, there's a whole lot more of this laying around..., but I like to roll my new stuff out in person at shows before it hits the net-waves.

Here are some copper pieces with oak leaves and various other pieces.  The large pieces will be cuff bracelets.  I need to file, shape, patina and sand.  The other pieces will be for some other projects.  I have a woven smaller cross and I've decided that I want to make an adjustable micro paracord necklace for that.  There is one finished leaf pendant in fine silver and the other two are straight out of the liver of sulfur.  Lots of pieces in various stages!  The larger copper bracelet pieces have a really pretty color to them right now, but it won't last.  That's what the happens after dropping them in what we call pickle at the studio.  It's really a mild acid, but the pickle sounds so much more tame.

Manicure....

I just love a good manicure....  Not!  The next time I work on this much metal..., I will wear gloves.  I started these pieces last week and have already finished some and made bracelets.  One of these will be a cigar band ring.  I have to use some consideration as to how much pressure I'm putting on the sanding depending on how deep the imprints are.  The leaves have a good structure and mill well, while some other organics are thinner than paper before milling.  I'm honestly surprised the images showed up at all.  Those have all the intention of the image without the depth. So delicate and really pretty!  I've been wanting to experiment with some other dried flowers and such.  You will see some new ones in the mix here.

Photo Study

I like to photograph my jewelry outside in natural light.  I really look for the perfect combination of time of day, shade, angle and so many other things can come into play.  I sometimes try to shield away too much reflected light that may come back from a large painted wall.  I have a large round nylon tent cover of all things, that makes the area where I photograph a bit more mellow with added shade.

  

I like what I call the sweet afternoon light and the photos can look so warm and rich.  At times, I place my items on a brick wall and get a little closer to a row of trees where the afternoon light will shine through.  I then adjust my pieces around so the soft light might hit a stone or brighten up a pearl.

If you look at these two photos, you will see one where the labradorite dangle illuminates and it's as dull as can be in the other photo.  This was due to the angle the photos were taken.  It's a great stone and if I want to sell something, I have to make sure it shows well.  This usually means I take loads of photos and have lots to sort through.  I upload, look through them, pencil down the good ones, note a check mark, one or two stars and note 3, 4, 5 after that.  I usually save my best pics and don't put those out there in cyber-land. 

Stones that can be a bit challenging to photograph are labradorite, moon stone, kyanite and opal.  The good stones have a color flash and you really want to capture that by working the various angles.

Fine Silver Coin Pendants

Here are a couple of the pendants I made of the fine silver coins.  I milled to shape these and went through the process of milling on the leaves and finishing them.  If you read my blog, then you pretty much have an idea of the process.

I hammered some words on the back of one of the pendants and made some simple wire wrapped beads to wear right above the pendants.  This is a simple way to wear these and they look great worn over my favorite non-color t-shirt of... black.  Black t-shirt, black cord...  looks like the pendant is floating.  Awesome!

The coins have the ridges around them and after milling the ridges are still there.  Someone asked me the other night about the bumps all the way around.  It's because these are coins and that's just the way they come from the mint.  Fun stuff.

Heavy Metal

Alright, I like rock music and there was a song with this title and even a movie....  Today, I'm talking about .999 fine silver bullion!  Ah, yes... real silver.  I do use sterling, but I really like to use the fine silver ingots and coins for some of my projects.  I can mill these pieces and imprint images on them and do so much.  Another interesting thing to mention is when enameling metal, fine silver or copper needs to be used.

The price of silver has gone down and is around $20.00 an ounce.  However, when you go to buy sterling silver sheet or pre-made chain, the price can be up to $25.00 to $27.00 per ounce.  This is off the high prices of over $50.00 an ounce not too, too long ago.  I do have receipts in my toolbox for sterling sheet I had purchased well over fifteen years ago for $7.90 an ounce.  This goes to show you how all over the place bullion and sterling silver prices can go. 

This all has to be considered when pricing jewelry.  Depending on the budget of many, they may make jewelry with brass, or copper.  I like to use copper for a variety of projects and many like the warm color.  It's been said to have some healing properties if worn close to the skin for those suffering from arthritis.  There is much written on the net regarding this subject.  It's great to use for larger pieces like cuff bracelets and book marks.

I knew an old time jeweler many years ago and he said he wouldn't waste his time making jewelry in sterling silver and only used yellow gold.  At that time, we talked about gold being $600++ an ounce for a high and that was maybe in the early 80's.  I can also remember gold being priced around $249.00 an ounce about 17 or 18 years ago.  This past year gold has dropped from over $1900.00 an ounce to $1250.00 or so an ounce.  It's interesting to watch the various markets and follow how banking and the financial outlook impacts so much.  

My friend Bob was a master jeweler and watchmaker at one time.  He really was right for his skill set.  He was using diamonds, fantastic colored stones and he would hand build everything with filigree and milled all his own gold.  He was a genius at what he did and I was fortunate enough to spend some time with him in his studio.  He's gone now, but I have two beautiful pieces of jewelry he made.  I drew up the design for one of the pieces and he made it just how I envisioned it.

What gets me about the metal is I view the fine silver as so much more than the sterling sheet.  It's almost pure silver bullion and it has more trade value.  I understand with the work I do, I'm milling it and sometimes almost removing most of the mint images, but it's still almost pure silver.  That really means something.

The sterling sheet is thinner and because it has other metals alloyed in, it may be stronger in thinner pieces.  I guess it all depends on how work hardened anything is.  There is a purpose, place, time and use for almost anything.  I love the sterling wires, gallery wires and pretty bezel wires for many projects.

I can tell you within a few days, some of this bullion with be milled, hit with a torch, drilled, sawed and turned into something completely different.  Can't wait!