Today I 'll tell you about one of the simplest and available method of colour patinating. But I should say that I am not a jeweller and can't operate with all the terms, so I am sorry now for my inaccurate formulations. Besides, it is very difficult to make that at once, I will tell you about without necessary tools and materials. But now we can buy and find everything we need. So, we'll need:
1. The findings, which colour we want to change. As for me, I have Anna Bronze findings from the collection "Waltz of Flowers"- the pendant 0819. Why have I chosen her findings? Because I am sure that it has a high quality, I know the structure of metal it is made of. I know that her findings will pass tests fire, water and so on
2. Chemical patina 712 and finishing covering.
3. A torch,I have a torch for soldering.
4. Citric acid, usual from a supermarket.
5. Minidrill, I have Dremel.
6. Brush.
7. Tweezers, a metal container, fireproof surface, a brick for example.
8. Water.
So, let's begin. Our finding looks so - it has blackening and it is covered with protective varnish to avoid oxidation while contact with skin.
My task is to remove this gloss to make the reaction of chemical patina and metal better. To do it you should take a container with water and tweezers. Fire the torch.
Then we heat detail till full burning out of varnish and blackening, put it to the fireproof surface. I use a brick.
A heated detail we place to water to cool it.Then we get it and admire. Now the detail is covered with soot. It is black and dirty. We should take it to bleach. To do it we need citric acid, water, metal container and a gas stove. I can't exactly tell about the proportion of water and citric acid, but I took 1 teaspoon on 70 ml of water. Add all the ingredients to a plate and put it on the stove,boil it .
We can do the bleaching of metal another way - to take a tablet of sparkling aspirin and half -filled glass of water and place finding into it, the result will be the same. But citric acid is cheaper and more convenient to use. So what I have after 10 minutes of boiling in citric acid? On the left you see a bleached detail.
Now we dry the findings and begin to do magic! We take a brush, chemical patina 712 and our detail.
Then moisten with a patina the surface of the detail with brush and put to dry. I like to dry details in a hover most of all because the table stays clean and a patina doesn't abrase from the side it is laid on. This is the mooost interesting picture.
0_fdeb8_98052a6e_orig.jpg 1. Findings before all the processings.
2. One layer of patina and drying. It is beautiful. But we want more beautiful.
3. Two layers of patina and drying. Wow! The surface is blue-green in violet speck. We can stop now, but...
4. We moisten the variant from the picture number 3 and dry it. The result is patina of emerald - turquoise colour , bright and light.
You can stop at any lap, the result should be pleasant for you. Now we take Dremel with a nozzle from abrasive to pull out some metal under the patina. Remove the layer of the patina following the acting points, without any pressing by the nozzle and ... our detail is shining and breathing.
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The patina made by this method is not strong covering and it is easy to lose it. To fix it you should cover the surface with finishing lacquer and dry it, so the beauty will please you for a long time.
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Thank you for your attention!
0_fdeb7_82e4c0a4_orig.jpg P.S. a note for you- pay your attention that this method of patinating suits only for bronze. Brass isn't patinating in such a way. Good luck!