A pod in the hand

©2019 Barry Smith - Pod held by Fiona

I started making a series of pod vessels last weekend; but did not have time to get back to the task until today. My goal was to all but finish one of the pods. The good news is that I achieved that goal.

After a couple more rounds of annealing and hammering on the steel stakes you can see how the shape of the vessel is being tightened.

©2019 Barry Smith  - The raising process under way

©2019 Barry Smith  - The two metal stakes I used with the annealing tray and quenching basin in the background

©2019 Barry Smith  - Tightening and raising the vessel form

Along the way I found that the metal was developing a split - turns out the stamping process for putting the pattern on the silver-plated tray had created a small fault line.

©2019 Barry Smith  - Metal split along the stamped pattern of the old tray

But all in all the pod has turned out beautifully. The pod started life as a 10.5cm flat circle of silver-plated copper cut from a vintage tray. In the end the pod is 5cm in diameter and about 4.5cm high.

©2019 Barry Smith  - The form underneath is the 10.5cm circle of metal after being sunk into a shallow bowl; and the pod on top is about 5cm in diameter - achieved by 10 rounds of hammering and annealing.

The pod looks and feels gorgeous in the hand; and the worn hammered silver-plated inside looks great - bit of copper showing through.

©2019 Barry Smith  - Pod on annealing trash

©2019 Barry Smith  - Fiona showing the contrasting lustre of the inside

©2019 Barry Smith  - Fiona showing the contrasting lustre of the inside - hammer marks and overlap of split area

I will give the pod a final grind and polish when I have a few others to take over to the polishing bench.