Last night's work included one of my 'getting better at soldering' cabochons.
The cabochon is from my bag of stones and is set onto a piece of the silver nickle that was previously etched. The silver nickle is a very thin gauge (24 ga.), and I chose to rivet it to a piece of brass that had been milled with lace. Wanting to explore an option for attaching the pendant to chain, I riveted a hand forged copper ring to the top. Meh.......I'm not completely sold on this option, so I may have to revise this detail.
My last cabochon pendant was riveted with balled copper wire, and I wanted to try a new material with this pendant. I ended up using brass escutcheon pins that can be found at any hardware store. The head of the pin is small and appropriately scaled to most of the jewelry pieces that I make. Like any other riveting material, it's important to match the size of the drilled hole to the diameter of the pin. That took a bit of work since these pins are not perfectly sized to any of my drill bits. Once fitted though the drilled holes, I cut off the excess length and finished the connection with my riveting hammer. 
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