Melting metal and progressing giveaway leaves

 

I was working on two things in parallel today - melting metal; and fast tracking 44 inspiration stamped leaves to be given away randomly in the future.

The photo above shows the back of a freeform piece of melted metal - a combination of gold, silver and brass - silver-plated brass was added to stretch the quantity of the metal. This was a very small melt of a combination of scrap metal that I have had saved and plan to use to make earrings and maybe a pendant. 

I'm sharing photos of a freeform piece that will most likely become a pendant (it is about 4cmX4cm) - the opening photo is of the back of the piece; and the photo below is the front after a rudimentary wire brushing. The pinkish colour comes from the gold and the fire colour comes from the copper in the brass. Sharing because I love the fire colour.

I melted more of those ornate metal edges from a drink tray to cast the cross and two hearts - they still need to be ground and polished. The reddish colour is from copper in the offcuts but it will disappear in the polishing process - the final product will be silver in colour.

Following are process photos of the 44 leaves. 

As you can see from the photos I used a brake to bend the metal; and a vise to fold them - a way of fast tracking through a couple of stages.

Fold forms marked up and cut to shape.

And then hammered ready to be opened and ground and polished.

I did not get the leaves finished as I had a couple of interruptions whilst in the workshop.