Cross Pendant: Forged stainless steel with a glass bead setting.Pendant Cross,finished.

Hope everybody is out there busy making beautiful things. Heres my latest....

Sterling Silver Necklace , Abalone, Smokey Quartz, approx. 2" x .75. Pendant and chain are fabricated. Shell and stone are cut by me.

Glass bead set in stainless steel.
Tear drop is also made of (fabricated)stainless steel.
As with my other stone and glass settings these are directly ARC WELDED into a pre-formed bezel without destroying the stone or glass bead.I've engineered a simple but effective "trick" to keep the heat of the instant weld of the MIG machine from ever reaching the fragile stone piece or glass bead...

I now have an apprentice, a young woman of remarkable intelligence and determination.  Fearless, too.

I've done some searching around here but not really found the answers. I have run out of investment for jewelry casting I see here that some of you make your own This is interesting because the cost of shipping doubles the cost of the stuff. So I find that 50/50 sand plaster mix will work but I see also that some say 30 mesh silica sand ( Lowes has no idea what I'm talking about) and some say brick sand is fine. Is that the same as costurction sand or is it sand box sand?