Figuring Out Granulation 

After observing the 3 jewellers in my previous 3 blog posts, I wanted to play around with a technique which all three incorporated into their work, which is granulation. I don't have any experience with granulation so I did some research on the internet, looked up information in the library and asked lecturers and other jewellers if they had any advice or techniques that would help me. What I have done so far is very basic but by playing around, I have learnt a lot. 

For the granules I found that using a charcoal block was the best option as I was able to drill holes to the right size or the granules and melt the ball to be completely round.
 On a regular soldering block the granules were flat on the one side.

I tried 3 methods of soldering the granules on:
1) Flooding the balls with solder and then using a very watered down mix of wood glue, then heated the piece evenly until soldered
2) Drilling slight divots with a ball-burr slightly smaller than the granules, flooding the divots with solder then placing the granules in the divots and heating the piece up evenly until solders.
3) Simply placing the granules on the surface after covering with solder and carefully solder

I found that the best method was the 2nd one.