Baronial Coronet

My long-time friend Mira Silverlock was elevated to a Court Barony at An Tir's September Crown in A.S. XXXV. She asked me to make her a coronet in Turkoman style.

This is Mira's piece of Turkoman jewelry that I took the basic pattern from.

Here the silver has been cut.

It's 16-gauge sterling, below is the pattern, along with the design to be etched into it.

Prepped for etching.

All coated with asphaltum and ready to go.

Starting the etch.

I had to make the etching tank, as I couldn't find a suitable tank to hold a 26 inch object. It took several minutes in a strong nitric acid solution to do the etch,

Soldering into a circle.

All soldering done.

Trim on bottom and pearl mounts attached.

After gold-plating.

In period, this would have been done with a process called "fire-gilding". It's a somewhat dangerous technique involving dissolving gold powder into liquid mercury, applying the gold-mercury amalgam to the metal and heating it to drive the mercury vapors off. An alchemist's dream and a toxicologist's nightmare. Very bad for you and the environment, lethal to do indoors and difficult to do outside on a cold and wet winter day. I used an electroplating technique that yielded very much the same look as fire-gilding.