Two Coral Bracelets

Bracelet by Sam Patania

This beautiful coral was purchased from a friend Steve Booth, boothballoon@earthlink.net,  a couple weeks ago. I bought enough to make two bracelets, one went to Mark Bahti right away, the other I still have in the studio. These bracelets are very complicated and exhausting to make.

Bracelet by Sam Patania

They have many layers and elements as well as the bezels. Dick Barber made the bezels for me, nice to have an apprentice.  Then I spent many hours backing and finishing the bezels before I could start the bracelet itself. Once the bezels are done I make the frame the whole bracelet will be built on. I forged the frame for both of these bracelet out of 6 gage round wire. I used Argentium sterling through out except for the bezels themselves. Argentium allows me to weld areas so the later on in the construction it won’t fall apart while I am soldering.

Bracelet by Sam Patania

The bracelet at the top of this post is called Sea Creature and is the more complicated of the two, the bottom one is called Sea Life. Sea Creature has 13 corals while Sea Life has 11.

Setting these odd shaped stones is nerve wracking since if I break one I an stuck. With almost any other material another stone can be bought or cut to fit into the mount but these corals are each one of a kind. It would be difficult or impossible to replace one of the bezels if I broke a stone since coral is very heat sensitive. Cold connection could be done but would not be in keeping with the rest of the design. Thank God, I didn’t break a stone.

Bracelet by sam Patania

I will be taking a break from this design for a long while. I have made enough of them recently and started wanting to get back to gem stones. As I stated before I won’t be buying any more coral. I do have some stock which will be used over time but I don’t have any more branch coral. Unless my dad has some branch coral these will be the last I make in coral of this style. I will be happy to do remounts of coral.  It’s odd to be writing that, I haven’t come up against any barriers to materials like this before but, I just can’t continue buying coral.

Tagged as: argentium, Bahti, coral, Patania Jewelry, Sam Patania