Does anyone else make jewelry or

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I've made silver/gold jewelry since I was young, about grade 8 - Just recently got my diagnosis as an aspie at 23. Chainmaille was the first thing I learned, now I'm studying in college.

Does anyone within earshot do similar work? I'd love to exchange some techniques the other humans won't figure out Also would like to compare another aspie artist's perspective on working through a non-scientific thing like art.

I only recently started but it's in fits and starts because of poverty and time crunch. I work mostly in copper. I make all my jewelry except rings because I don't know how to solder. I have forged some s-link chains, bypass rings, bracelets and a cloak pin from recycled wire but I've lost my chasing hammer. Chainmaille looks extremely difficult to me.

Soldering is really easy - annealing is learned at the same time.

Fit your joint - 'hard' solder will close a tiny visible gap if touching both sides.
Pickle in sodium bisulphate/sulfuric acid/citric acid until clean. I cant emphasize 'NO STEEL IN THE PICKLE' enough. Copper plating will result from steel in the pickle which you can use to hide seams on copper.
Apply dandix flux, batterns flux or borax in water to joint beforehand - coat silver entirely to prevent fire scale.
Copper is incredibly forgiving to solder and propane is usually enough, heat the whole area to just faintly glowing and then focus on the seam.
The solder will flow like a liquid, after which you will have a small amount of time to spread it further.

If you have a chasing hammer, how far into forging have you gone? We just started chasing and ive got a ton of catchup to do there :p

Not very far. I'm kind of trying to teach myself since I can't afford classes. I've seen lots of YouTube demos and stuff like that. I got the hammer and a small bench block and have made a few little things, but it's not that great. I can make my own clasps and connectors, and I've even made very simple chains. There's a massive amount that I don't know. I'm just kinda groping blindly at it.

One of the more interesting things I've done but have let fall by the wayside is recycling CDs. I've transferred images using gel medium and they give it a weird, shimmery background. And the transfer gel by itself does really cool things to the cd's surface, even if the shiny stuff is gone. I wish I could post pictures on here so you could see what I'm talking about, but I'm at work and most of the photo-sharing sites are blocked for me. And I don't have internet at home--the poverty thing again.

The technicalities all come with experimentation. Aspie eyesight and hearing are a major boon, it seems that out of my class only I can see the very faint glow of early softening temp and only I can hear when metal has gotten too hard.

The flux provides all the ques you need - flux melts and goes glassy when the object goes above 1000 and turns the flame green at 1100; when you're getting close to dangerous temp it turns red and then black. You wont see that against copper but its really hard to melt copper/brass anyway. They glow like light bulbs before melting temp, youll have tons of time/warning.

We do the gel transfer too but I found other ways to get the same effects - for example, thc is a VERY effective patina (surface colors, like the parliament building roofs - those are copper patina'ed with ammonia). Mix resin or oil with other reactive chemicals like ammonia, vinegar, peanut oil whatever and apply as desired.

I would definitely recommend that you give chainmaille a go because I started for poverty as well; believe me it's simpler to produce than view only five or six techniques used in whatever sequence versus size/ratio of the rings.

www.ganoksin.com online encyclopedia of jewelry techniques
www.cgmaille.com maille techniques explained in detail