Back on the hammer and stake

 

It was good to get time in the workshed today to make a set of fungi form bowls - you can see the outcome in the opening and following photos

As is often the case there are many steps in creating these small forms - turning the disks of metal into small bowls; putting an indent into the indoor centre ; and systematically hammering the bowl on my 'finger' shaped stake.

A couple of process photos follow.

A photo of my handmade stake (made by a blacksmith in Portland Oregon: and my hand made Japanese metal working hammer  follow.

Photos by Fiona of me hammering.

A good session in the workshop!!!!

A tale of two batches of metal

 

In the future I hope to start a new line of jewellery using salvaged silver that has been melted and rolled into strips about 1-1.2mm thick.

Whilst giving Fiona a bit of a hand with a couple of her experiments I decided to melt a second batch of silver objects I had been gifted - earrings, bangle, chain etc. I was melting the metal in my electric furnace. I set the temperature at 930 degrees to see if the metal would melt at that point. See below  very hot furnace with molten metal in the graphite crucible.

I poured the metal into the metal form you can see sitting on top of the furnace to warm it up. It poured well. But when It came to cutting the metal it simple shattered as you can see from the opening photo. And when Fiona tried to put a piece through the metal roller it just turned into particles as you can see in the photo below.

I have no idea why the metal just turned to a crystaline form. It has happened to me a couple of times in the past. All I can think is that some of the silver metal objects gifted to me must have had impurities that causes the metal to change character when mixed with other salvaged metal.

Fortunately I had done a silver metal melt earlier and when I cut that metal into strips it rolled well - quite hard but able to be used in the future work. Some annealing and rolled metal photos follow. The metal strips when rolled went from 50mm to over 100mm.

It just reinforces that using salvaged metal is always a bit of a lotto as one can never be guaranteed of the quality of the material. 

I re-melted the shattered metal and turned it into stars!!!! See below - a lot of colourful impurities!!!

Repurposing salvaged objects

 

Many moons ago I had removed the bowl sections off a few vintage champagne coupes - yes there are such things - certainly a thing in days gone by. They were wider and shallower goblets!!

Anyway I digress. I thought if hammered the bowls to create a deeper shape and planish the back surface, the coupe sections would make good deep ladle bowl sections.

As you can see from the opening photo I have made three deeper ladles. These can be used for ladling hot soup, or stews or ladling jams or sauces into jars - very versatile!!! The handles are a bit longer than usual so one can keep one's hands away from hot or boiling liquids.

A few of the process photos follow: forming handles, formed bowls before planishing, the planishing process and back and front of the bowls after planishing and polishing.

A few more images of the finished ladles. I have used 2mm thick copper rivets on these ladles - cut down copper nails.

These ladles have been put into my online shop under the Culinary Metal category 

The vagaries and beauty of metal

 

Using salvaged metal comes with is rewards and sometimes unwanted surprises. More on the unwanted surprise later. Image of the furnace at 925 degrees follows.

Some more images of hearts and stars from two different metal melts. One produced stars and hearts with rainbow fire colour as you can see from the opening image and those below. The melt was mainly pewter but with a touch of vintage silver plated copper.

The more silvery melt was pewter with a touch of what was supposed to be sterling silver.

Now about that unwanted surprise. I did a melt at 925 degrees of metal from a vintage silver hand held mirror that was supposedly sterling silver. The metal melted and poured into the sheet metal form as you can see below; but when I came to cut the metal so I could roll it thinner the sheet simply shattered. So there was obviously something suspect about the original claim about the metal - who knows what impurities were in it.

I will remelt the shattered bits and add some pewter and i will pour more giveaway hearts and stars.

The metal used in the bowls and leaf words below was more predictable - a salvaged silver-plated placemat and several small silver-plated trays. The bowls ended up so shiny that they reflected the ceiling of the workshop!!! The leaf words are part of a commission.

The ongoing lesson for me regarding salvaged metal is that it offered mainly beauty but occasionally unwanted surprises!!! 

Preparation and prototype

 

I did not get to finish anything over the weekend; but I made a start on a few things during the week including testing a prototype of a free standing brass leaf form that could become one of the pages of an unbound artists' book.  I cracked it with the form (see above); and have had the sense to trace the form before cutting and bending the prototype - see below. I will work on this book in the coming weeks.

In the spirit of sifting, sorting and shifting as part of the closure of our public studio-gallery I decided to have a good assessment and cutting up of metal in the workshop - see some of the chopped metal below.

In the sorting I discovered the half made stamped leaf forms below - these will now be ground-polished etc and possibly make their way into the revamped online shop when it happens.

I have had a couple of requests for my Daily Leaf Word Sets - I had sold out in December. So as part of the cutting process I have made enough bowl and word blanks for 4 sets.

I have also sold out of my tiny stamped silver plated books. Again I cut up various pieces of silver plated metal and offcuts and now have enough pieces to make seven books.

So there are a lot of future making options right there. 

I have been filling 10 litter buckets with metal offcuts over the last couple of years - I now  have a reasonably full bucket of pure copper scraps and a bucket of silver plated brass and brass offcuts. Fiona and I will do a run in the near future to sell the offcuts to a metal recycling company.

Clearing the decks - repurposing materials

 

Over the last month I have been sorting and clearing materials I have collected and in some cases even cut and drilled - but not assembled - see below. 

Whilst some metal and bits and pieces have made their way into recycling I decided to assemble all the jewellery related bits - making earrings and pendants. 

A couple of process photos follow. A couple of delicate earring blanks cut from Scottish slate - ground and drilled!! Earring drops cut from vintage tea-spoons etc

Photos of assembled earrings and pendants appear in the photos below. I love the combination of the rusty washers, riveted silver plated band and a solid silver chain - gorgeous contrasts.

The sorting, clearing and assembling processes in both the workshop and on the jewellery assembling desk now means I can get on with other metal work tasks I have planned including: another Memory Keeper Bowl; another Meditation Incense Bowl; a few more Daily Leaf Word Sets; some small metal books with stamped words; and some patinated copper leaves.  These things will appear on the blog over the next couple of months.