Silver Filigree Fantasy Longbow Pendant

A friend of mine wrote a fantasy novel about Evi'Deth - a female drow on a journey to uncover her forgotten past. There was an episode where the main character wonders around an underground dwarf city and buys an unusual silver pendant shaped as a longbow with a labradorite. In that instant a thought rushed through my mind: “That would be an excellent project for me to try!”.

Here is a list of tools and supplies I used during the crafting process:

1. sterling silver wires (0.6, 0.8 and 1.0 mm)
2. silver solder medium and easy
3. silver soldering flux
4. soldering block
5. gas torch reaching at least 750 C (I use Dremel 2200)
6. solder pick
7. silver pickle (I use citrine acid)
8. bunch of files
9. sand paper (mainly 800, 1500 grit)
10. engraver with burrs (I use Dremel Micro)
11. pliers
12. cutters
13. tweezers
14. awl
15. bezel pusher
16. small hammer
17. vise
18. thin steel wire
19. thermolock for stone setting

My first sketch wasn’t too pretty but it was enough to kick off a conversation with the author. On top of that I borrowed some inspiration from the bow designs in Skyrim which are absolutely incredible. After about 20 sketches I was able to select one that seemed to be fitting the world it was supposed to be from.

I began with making a grip – a central element the archer holds the bow by. I took a 0.8mm wire and tightly wound on a thin awl, soldered and then squeezed in my Stanley vice. Becuase it is hollow the first elements of the bow limbs should partially fit inside it. It will give a great structural strength when soldered.

Everything is prettier with a filigree. A fellow pro jeweller told me this once and I cannot disagree. For filling the spaces in the bow limbs I used a prefabricated filigree wire. This stage is very time consuming as I try to put loops of thin twisted wire inside the bow wireframes. I use a pair of tweezers and an awl tool for this. Once all the spaces filled I solder them in with a soft solder keeping an eye on both sides of the element. Only when the decoration is completed I solder bow limbs to the grip to get a complete longbow frame.

Once the main bow frame is ready it is time to attach the string and put an arrow in the knee bow (Skyrim fans would probably find this funny). For the string I twisted a loop of a 0.6 wire and filled it with soft solder. I made slight grooves on both nocks of the bow handle where the string ends would go and soldered them with medium solder.

Now what about the arrow? It must be attached to the grip on one side and to the string on the other. And it should hold the gemstone. The easiest option would be just cutting through the side of the grip and solder the arrow inside, but it would probably ruin the aestetics. I could also make the arrow with 2 separate chunks of wire: this would keep the grip intact but I wasn’t sure I can align them quite right.

The compromise was to drill a hole through the center of the grip and push the arrow inside it. The tricky part is that the arrowhead wouldn’t fit in the hole so it has to be attached later on. So first I prepared a bezel for my labradorite gem and soldered it on the headless arrow. Then the arrow went through the hole in the grip and sat tightly on the bowstring. Only when it was perfectly aligned and fixed in position I soldered the arrowhead. It wasn’t easy to get this right because the end of the arrow was lifted up a little and there was no way to fix the arrowhed in a third hand.

Once all soldering is done and the bow is after the acid bath, it is time to set the gem. Before the final setting I run a final fitnes check by placing dental floss in a bezel - this trick helps to easily get stone out if it got stuck in the bezel too early.

During the soldering, tumbling and polishing the bezel might deform so you might have to straighten it or even grind off the inner walls a little. For stone setting I lock the bow in place with a bit of hot glue on a chunk of wood and then I place it in the vice. I put the gem in its bezel and start setting it with my bezel pusher. This is a long and meticulus part of the process. I try to avoind using glue in my jewellery so I want to make sure the stone sits firmly in its bezel.

In order to turn the silver longbow into a pendant it needs a way to be put on a necklace or a chain. I could have just add a simple jump ring on one end of the bow but it wouldn't look great. Hence, I made an oval loop of 0.8mm wire, filled it with filigree and folded it to form a good looking bail. I touched it up with a supersoft solder to make sure it does not open, but next time this better be done before the stone setting and final polishing. Even though I tried to use a narrow flame there was still some firescale formed on the longbow frame and I had to polish it off once more.

So with the stone in the bezel and the bail attached it is safe to conclude that the fantasy longbow pendant is completed! The author was thrilled to see one of the artifacts from her book in the real life :)