Pouring molten metal

Last weekend, even though I was still getting over my cold, I went to a casting workshop at Artisan's Asylum. And it was amazing! I hadn't seen the new Asylum space yet, and it is so great. Overflowing with maker-ness and beautiful art and crazy projects and a sense of community everywhere. Like the best parts of a machine shop, a hippie co-op, and an artist studio all mixed together.

In the casting class, we melted bronze with a REALLY HOT TORCH. It was oxygen/acetylene! I am very covetous of this torch. So much so that I'm considering joining the Asylum just for occasional access to that torch.

To get a feel for melting the metal, we first just cast into water for random shapes. Then, we moved on to Delft casting (a very precise sand-casting) and cuttlebone casting. These were both methods I'd read about before and was eager to try out. Here are my first attempts at each (taken with my cell phone in class):

The ammonite on the left is duplicated via Delft clay. The face on the right was a semi-accidental shape made with cuttlebone casting--I tried to carve a trilobite, but missed, and it looked like a face because brains are good at seeing faces. So I did a bit of shaping with a file to enhance the face-ish-ness.

Seeing that cuttlebone carving can be a bit unpredictable, I of course turned to making continents. I really love the way the cuttlebone ridges lend a topo-map feel. I hope to make more things like this!

From my computer to paper to metal to paper

Look at this print! I've finally gotten the hang of transferring designs from my computer to metal, using this tutorial for the laster printer transfer process and the Edinburgh etching method. (The image I used for this example comes from Wikimedia Commons.)

Just being able to replicate computer designs nearly exactly on copper or brass is pretty exciting on its own. But using my trusty pasta machine as a printing press worked just as well as I'd been hoping. So neat!

You might wonder what the point is of printing a design on a laser printer only to transfer it to metal and then print it by hand. Well, I'm a process junkie, so my first answer is "It's just fun, OK?!"

But there are some other reasons. The texture of this kind of print is just different--the metal bites into the paper a bit. There are opportunities to incorporate artsy layering of printed textures by etching a combination of computer designs and designs carved by hand. And if I wanted to, I could use fluorescent inks, glitter-laden inks, or play with inking with multiple colors for a handmade, one-of-a-kind print. All things you can't get from a standard laser printer. Then, when I'm done playing with printmaking, I could turn the copper into some sort of jewelry!

I feel like I suddenly have a whole new world of design and illustration at my disposal. Right now I'm wondering how to combine public domain medieval woodblocks with fractals and abstract shapes. What do you want to see me etch?

Bwahaha! A pile of shinies!

These don't have much story to go with them, but they look so awesome that I don't care. Heeheehee. So that's TEN pendants, most with gemstones and a couple without. There's amber, turquoise, garnet, malachite, labradorite, and carnelian in here. I'm contemplating doing a couple more with larger amethysts in the middle, too.

Hmm, I should make improving my light box (for taking nice photos in the basement studio) a priority after ISC. When I've just completed something, I'm so full of amazement at what I've done, so proud that I've managed to wrestle some scraps of metal into the shape and finish that I wanted, that I'm eager to take photos. It's like, I don't know, taking pictures of your favorite kitten or something--so much fun you can't even fathom not wanting to do it. When I save up new pieces to take a ton of pictures on a sunny day, that's when it feels like a chore. Good to know!

Oh, and ISC had some kind of website problem. Their website is now here: International Steampunk City Waltham.

Gears and malachite

After that huge, ornate no-solder compass pendant, I felt like doing something in the opposite direction last night--something smallish and simple, very glossy, involving soldering. So I put this together from some bits I had lying around the bench. Maybe it would be good for someone with a more minimalist-leaning love of steampunk at ISC.

I realized that I'd unwittingly echoed one of my very first metalwork pieces, which also features a brass gear, malachite, and soldering:


I made that pendant on the right during the same class where I made my Hello World ring. The intensive weekend introduction to metalsmithing I took at CCAE in the summer of 2009 was really the start of all this. Seeing that it was possible to solder gears onto metal was pretty exciting! But unlike my Hello World ring, this pendant isn't something I wear proudly to remember the start of my metalsmithing adventures--it neither feels like something that goes with my current wardrobe, nor like a good representative of my techniques. I'm probably going to take it apart and recycle the silver, so I thought I'd take this picture and write a bit about it in order to have a record of my second-ever piece of metalsmithing.

New finished pendant: Copper clockwork compass

I'm really proud of this one. Yes, it's kind of enormous (the piece in the center is an inch in diameter), and maybe the cutouts don't show up as much as overlays in a contrasting color would've--but now I know with certainty that I can make a complex, interesting piece to hold a watch movement without soldering. My current torch doesn't have the output to heat pieces this big, and while I want to upgrade to something hotter someday, I'm so glad that I can showcase these little mechanisms right now, in time to make things for International Steampunk City. And if I wind up giving a demo at ISC in a space where I can't use a torch, I'll probably make something like this.



This design and the textures make me think of an airship navigator with a mysterious device to help her steer even when storms and fog are obscuring everything. It's definitely a statement piece--it says "why yes, I do know where I'm going, thank you very much". I have more ideas for variations on this theme--earrings, smaller pendants, pendants in different shapes, different things as centerpieces, etc. I can't wait to make them :)

Update on those earrings

Here's how one of those pairs of earrings I was working on last night turned out:

New pendant, and the process of making it

Last weekend, I designed and made a new pendant:



I also photographed most of the steps involved and the tools I used. I've put them together into a slideshow! I hope you enjoy this insight into my process.