Silver Fountain Necklace
This necklace is a small scale representation of a 42 foot Fountain Lightning Powerboat. The design and shape is centered around a specific boat so as to be easily recognizable from across the room. The necklace is made entirely from .925 Sterling Silver. The design of the necklace started with some small scale graphic design work in order to create a two-dimensional vector image of the boat.
I started by tracing the outline of the boat and design on paper, then imported a picture of that into my computer where I re-traced it again digitally to achieve clean straight linework. That image was uploaded into my vinyl sticker cutter and the new stickers were used as a reference for cutting the silver plate to size. The stickers also acted as a “mask” to protect certain areas during an acid etching process.
I painted any additional areas, including the back that I did not want to be affected by the acid. Then the acid was placed in a warm water bath and the piece of silver was placed inside for 10 hours. During this time the acid etched deep into the surface of the silver in the exposed areas. This left a recessed design that would not be wore away with time. A silver chain was soldered to both ends of the necklace with a standard claw clasp in the middle.
This design prevents the necklace from flipping or turning in a way that would allow the point to catch on your clothing or poke the wearer. The pattern was then filled with another acid that has a chemical reaction causing the silver to turn black. This chemical process is much more resistant to wearing away than traditional paint filler might be.
The surface was then polished flat with a diamond lapping compound in 3.5 micron coarseness and finished on a high shine buffing wheel. As an added bonus I had the file on hand and was able to simply throw in some extra vinyl decals.
