What is not to love about hearts

 

I did not have much time for doing art today - I was mainly doing community meeting stuff. But I did get time to finish off the solid silver heart pendants and earrings above and below. The solid silver heart pendants are 20mm across and about 3mm thick; and the hearts on the earrings are 15mm across and about 1.5mm thick.

And a couple of copper hear pendants 0 that are 30mm across and 4mm thick.

I love the shadow of a heart left on solid silver overflow blob that developed when I poured wee hearts to make earrings. The droplet is about 30mm long.

But first hearts - then other stuff

 

Another one of those weekends where I attended to a few things: printing a couple of layouts of my Daily Words booklet; doing some preparation for the installation of the posts on Monday; processing bunya nuts; slicing a lot of heart formed metal ingots; and packing buffalo and bone earrings and delivering them to Maleny Additions. The final pile of the sliced hearts in the rough are above.

Some other photos of the hearts follow: first there are solid silver hearts, then silver-brass hearts and finally hearts attached to a few of the over-poured metal. The smallest hearts are about 1cm across. They all look rough in their cut state - but after drilling, grinding and polishing they will be ready to be turned into gorgeous earrings and pendants.

On Saturday I managed to print four pages - two sheets of my Daily Words booklet. I'm printing 25 copies to achieve 20 quality prints. It is working out well - Fiona assisted with advice about the most efficient printing sequence. The words next to the word Joy are not about Joy; but rather the word Shine.

SHINE

So a full weekend. I didn't get back to the spreading knives - probably get to those during the week.

A different sort of day

 

The focus of the day was metal - melting and pouring metal; cutting silver-plated blanks for word leaves; and slicing tiny (1cm)  and small (2cm) solid silver hearts. As you can see from the above phots above and below I managed to slice the metal for the solid silver hearts.

You can see I was slicing the poured metal with a saw because my side grinder needs servicing. The hearts will make gorgeous  earrings and pendants when polished.

But that is where the time in the workshop finished for the day. Thankfully my time was flexible so I was able to use the rest of the day and a bit of the evening giving a few folk a hand. 

Simply silver

 

I had poured some bits and pieces of melted silver when I was forming a few solid silver hearts (which have all been sold). On Friday and today I managed to do more cutting, drilling, polishing and assembling.

In all 6 pendants and six pais of earrings. 

Four pendants (opening and in progress photo above) are bar shaped about 1cm wide, 2.5cm long and 4-6mm thick with the texture on the top surface. They vary in weight - from 16-21grams. I have combined the simplicity of cord with the simplicity of silver.

There is a moon shaped pendant (spoken for) and a free form pendant - below.

Three pairs of earrings with smaller hooks.

And three pairs with longer drops.

Some of the pieces have spirals stamped on the back but I tested a footprint stamp on the ones below.

Smelting and using the metal

Art is not always about the making. Sometimes it is in the preparation; the ordering of materials; the acquiring of tools etc. Today has seen me ordering sheet metal and steel rod for elements of a couple of projects; attempting to order some equipment; taking delivery of some recycled silverware; and making a Steampunk Lamp (not yet polished).

During the week I spent four days at an art institute learning the art of recycling scrap silver; forming useable sheets and rods from the smelted metal; using the silver plate and rod to make a few pieces; and learning about some sustainable and non toxic processes and chemicals along the way.

In the following I want to share some photos of the smelting process; and the creation of plate and rod. I will then go on to share a few photos of the pieces I made from some of the silver we smelted. I also took along some old worn silver coins that I also smelted to create some coin-sliver plate that I will use at home. We were taught by a silver-smith Claire Poppi.

Setting up the cast-iron mould.

©2015 Barry Smith - Claire setting up the casting mould.

Melting  the recycled 925 silver which is mixed with new silver scraps..

©2015 - Lots of heat - took about 5 minutes to melt 60+ grams.

©2015 Barry Smith - Beautiful molten blob of silver - lovely zoom shot with the iPhone

The crucible after the pour. We did 6 smelts and pours.

©2015 Barry Smith - The crucible still glows red hot after the pour.

Breaking out a 925 silver ingot.

©2015 Barry Smith - 60+  gram ingot of pure 925 silver

The coin-silver ingot cooling; and then cleaned (pickled). The coin-silver is probably about 60-80% pure silver.

©2015 Barry Smith - My coin silver ingot - also about 60 grams

©2015 Barry Smith - Clean coin-silver ingot

Making wire - drawing square rod rolled earlier in the mill. I cut off a piece of the square rod for later use in making a twist ring.

©2015 Barry Smith - Claire demonstrates wire drawing

Coin ingot after rolling in a hand operated plate rolling mill. All the ingots looked similar to this after rolling down from about 5mm thickness to about 1mm.

©2015 Barry Smith - Rolled coin-silver

Rings made from some plate and square rod. Fiona and her mum scored one each

©2015 Fiona Dempster - Two twist rings - one from smelted square rod and one from smelted silver

A couple of pendants made from recycled silver. I added a piece of pearl shell from home to the highly polished piece. And the second one has been pickled in citric acid but not yet finished.

©2015 Fiona Dempster - 1mm thick back of the pendant made from a piece of rolled smelted 925 silver - natural rolled form about 15mm wide and 50+mm long

©2015 Fiona Dempster - Pendant made from a piece of rolled smelted silver - natural rolled form about 30mm wide and 60+mm long

And my coin-silver straightened and cleaned - ready for use.

©2015 Fiona Dempster - Natural form of the end of my coin-silver plate 

A very enjoyable week I learnt a lot. Now I must go and make a roast pumpkin and blue cheese risotto to go with the red wine.