Metal and stone

 

I have completed 5 small sculptural pieces that combine formed recycled metal and stone or cement. One of the 5 pieces in fact has 3 metal forms attached to a very hard polished stone - see above - photo of the piece sitting on a ledge in front of my anvil.

As you can see from the process photo below quite a few of the metal forms have some beautiful brass and rainbow highlights on their back surfaces.

The photo below shows me drilling into the base of the form so that 1.5mm brass rod can be hammered and glued into the form to use to attach to the stones and cement. The third photo is one of the pieces in the sun to help the glue to dry - the metal forms needed to be propped up with some pieces of wood.

Following are a number of photos off the pieces.

These small sculptures will probably head over to Scotland.

Not everyone's favourite flower

 

A few days ago my eye was caught by the sheer variety of gazania flowers G has in his front garden bed. We think he has planted them mainly because they are tolerant of most conditions and just open beautifully to the sunlight. 

Gazania's are not everyones favourites flowers; but I do like the colour and beauty they can offer.

Also a bit of detail of some flowers that transited through our home on their way to a funeral service.

Even simple and common beauty can offer hope.

Repairing the Grief Garden bench seat

 

You might recall that I made a rustic bench seat in the Japanese style and routed and inked words in the front of it as you can see from the photo above.The seat is made from recycled treated hardwood fence posts. The seat was installed in the Maleny Journey of Life Grief Garden as you can see in the photo below.

But after a few months in the weather it became apparent that a section of the top timber was rotted. In fact what happened was the section of timber was sap wood and was not going to be good in the long run see photo below.

I agreed to repair the seat by carving out the sap wood and replacing it with a black carbon fibre resin. Fiona was on hand to assist and all photos were taken by Fiona. A photo of the tools, resin and sandpaper follows.

The process was in several stages: carving and cleaning out sap wood; mixing and applying first layer of resin; applying second layer of resin; sanding; and applying a coat of clear lacquer. Process photos follow.

The finished product looks strong and hopefully will last.

It will look more integrated once it is in the weather for a while

Dark art

 

I wanted to melt clean copper offcuts from the making of peace doves; but the computer or electrical switch in the furnace cannot handle sustained temperatures over 1100 degrees. In melting pewter I have noticed that copper and brass will melt at a lower temperature when added to the molten pewter.

I had set the furnace at 1025 degrees and still the copper had not melted so I added a couple of imperfect peace buttons I wanted to remelted - presto the copper almost immediately melted. But as you can see from the opening photos  and the photos below, the metal is coated with black when poured into a mould and cooled.

However the black is only a sooty coating that polished off with a wire brush revealing a brasslike metal rather than copper looking as you can see below

I have repeated this experiment and found that the melt will take place below 1000 degrees so that is good news - it just means I will be making a metal amalgam - bit of fun experimenting.

Rainbow at dawn and other fragments

 

This year the shortest day in the year in Australia is reported to be Thursday 22. It is certainly dark when we get up to get ready to exercise - see photos below.

My morning walk was at dawn - at first dusk light but what a delight to have a rainbow lorikeet (see opening photo) land on a grevillea just in from of me when I was taking the photo of the camellia on a bush nearby.

Talking of light -  here a few of photos of a stem of flowers F and I saw in town; and shadow.

And yesterday's sunset.

Not to be overlooked - G's crucifix orchids are blooming.