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!!!

Testing tools and making examples

 

Preparation for my Simple Stylish Jewellery Workshop in Scotland in August is proceeding. We will be using salvaged silver-plated brass. Having done a plan and a design options sheet, I am now testing basic hand tools I can take with me on the next trip and making some examples based on the design options sheet and with the hand tools.

The opening and following photos shows the examples I made today

As the following photo shows I have cut most of the metal for the workshop. 

I'm testing a wooden dapping tool, metal punch pliers, a micro eyelet setting tool, diamond file for make the flower form and a vintage jeweller's  hand held vice - see photos below.

Over the weekend I hope to complete and assemble the examples including putting the pendants on necklaces and the earrings on earwigs.

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 

Mindful Metal books

 

I tend to categorise the above small silver-plated metal books in both my Mindful Metal and Artists' Books online shop categories because they have both function and form.

From a function perspective, because each small book (about 4.5cm high, 3.7cm wide and 2.5cm across page opening) has a word stamped on the centre page, each is meant to encourage contemplation on or holding onto that word of the action it invokes. Each book could be used as part of meditation; or sit beside one's bed or computer to encourage a gentle focus on the word. Because each book is unique and hand made from silver-plate from salvaged placemats I also see then as small 3D artists' books - small sculptural pieces.

A few process photos follow. I usually tape the three book leaves together to hold them firm when I drill and rivet the book leaves together.

A couple more photos of four of the completed books follow.

At least one of each of the books (shine, love, hope and dream) can be found in my online shop. 

When a metal worker makes a book

 

I have started making a couple of artists' books for the upcoming Narratives exhibition at the little Red Cottage in Maleny. Unfortunately we will be in Scotland when the exhibition opens so we need to get our pieces done well before heading overseas.

One of my books is based on my prose poem on the important and multiple roles of river trees. A you can see from the opening photo the book will be unbound and each book leaf will be in the form of a metal leaf.

A few images of font tests on the flat metal and stamping the pages follow.

Once the book leaves were ground and polished they were annealed and then formed into the curved leaves.

The back of the formed leaves were then hammered on a metal stake to take and wrinkles out of the metal and give the leaves a faceted look.

The leaf forms need to be be given another grind and polish and the curves tweaked.My artists' book Mighty River Trees will then be ready for photographing and for the exhibition.

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!!!