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Adventures in Silversmithing
March 15th, 2011 08:59 pmI've made a post on the stacking rings I'm making over on my craft blog. There's a photo of one of the works in progress and a write up.
Adventures in Enamelling
October 17th, 2010 08:50 pmI bought a starter enamelling kit from the internet a few months back and over the last week or so, I’ve finally found the time to have a go at it.
I bought twelve different types of enamel powder, half opaque and half transparent plus a clear enamel and white to use as a base.
Below is my method for my first batch of firing. Sadly there are not pictures of me in my goggles and face mask to try and keep the enamel out of my lungs. Well, the instructions are covered in warnings that it contains arsenic and all sorts of unpleasant things.
Although it looks all shiny there, it is still powder form and the glare the enamel has picked up off the flash proves just how glassy it is.
Here it is in the kiln about to get melted. It was all quite exciting.
Unfortunately I got distracted by a funny bit of Family Guy and left the test peices in there for about 8 minutes. (It should only take a couple of minutes for the enamel to melt and go glossy).
And this is what happened to them. Woe and oops. As you can see I overfired them slightly and the glass has gone black. The Internet tells me that I can grind the top layer of glass off and fire again and they’ll go all glossy, but I’m going to leave them as they are as a reminder of what I did wrong.
Coming soon, my second test firing, this time with my hand torch. Will I be more successful?
I bought twelve different types of enamel powder, half opaque and half transparent plus a clear enamel and white to use as a base.
Below is my method for my first batch of firing. Sadly there are not pictures of me in my goggles and face mask to try and keep the enamel out of my lungs. Well, the instructions are covered in warnings that it contains arsenic and all sorts of unpleasant things.
Although it looks all shiny there, it is still powder form and the glare the enamel has picked up off the flash proves just how glassy it is.
Here it is in the kiln about to get melted. It was all quite exciting.
Unfortunately I got distracted by a funny bit of Family Guy and left the test peices in there for about 8 minutes. (It should only take a couple of minutes for the enamel to melt and go glossy).
And this is what happened to them. Woe and oops. As you can see I overfired them slightly and the glass has gone black. The Internet tells me that I can grind the top layer of glass off and fire again and they’ll go all glossy, but I’m going to leave them as they are as a reminder of what I did wrong.
Coming soon, my second test firing, this time with my hand torch. Will I be more successful?
What am I letting myself in for?
June 23rd, 2010 11:09 pmThere's a skills festival going near work in a couple of weeks and the organisers have asked me to do some jewellery workshops!
After flailing for a good five minutes I agreed.
So tonight I've spent a good hour looking at beads and buying tiara bands and combs and wire and whatnot. I've spent about £30 altogether but they are going to reimburse me for what I'll use. Which is nice.
I've bought some lovely bead mixes from jillybeads.com.
At the moment I'm down to do a beaded necklace workshop, a tiara or fascinator workshop and a silversmithing demonstration.
I'm excited and scared to death in equal measures. I'll also need to make up some samples over the weekend to display.
OMG, what am I letting myself in for?
Posted via LiveJournal.app.
I have committed craft!
June 17th, 2010 10:08 pmI've made some salt dough plaques of ex-Cheddar's hands and feet. I've written a tutorial and there's some pictures over on my craft blog.
Please nip on over to take a look and leave comments and let me know what you think!
Please nip on over to take a look and leave comments and let me know what you think!
Thanks to all of you who gave me advice and suggestions on my last craft blog post. I've decided to go with wordpress.com (with the possibility of moving it into a wordpress.org account and onto my domain in the future)
I've designed and photographed my header banner (which I'm fairly pleased with) and have started working on the layout with help from an old wordpress account I had.
However I haven't the faintest idea what to actually call it and I'm a bit stumped and uninspired. Help!
I've designed and photographed my header banner (which I'm fairly pleased with) and have started working on the layout with help from an old wordpress account I had.
However I haven't the faintest idea what to actually call it and I'm a bit stumped and uninspired. Help!
As I've said above I'm thinking of setting up a crafty blog, somewhere I can advertise and show off to family and friends IRL. Which is something I can't do at the moment because I don't want them to find this place. This is my personal place and I really don't want IRL people poking around it.
So I've been looking at my options.
( some thinkies behind the cut, please click I want YOUR advice )
So I've been looking at my options.
( some thinkies behind the cut, please click I want YOUR advice )
__kali__'s adventures in DIY
April 15th, 2010 04:28 pmFor the past few weeks I've been having a new bathroom fitted and I actually did some of it myself!
( photos and stuff behind the cut )
( photos and stuff behind the cut )
I did another test run with the kiln again this week. I'm still messing about with the firing schedule. I think I'm going to need to make my top fusing temperature a bit lower with a shorting holder time to keep it nicely square instead of rounding off as it is.
( pictures behind the cut )
( pictures behind the cut )
Here's what I've been doing for the past few weeks.
A Birthday Present for my best friend G. The larger of the two circles is about 2cm. I punched some little circles and then had at it with the little planishing hammer. I'm really pleased with how it turned out.
My Top Sekrit project for the last few weeks. This is the test piece (so it's the one the Baby Formerly Known as Cheddar will end up with). It came out a lot better then I imagined it would. Need to practice my Hammering more and come up with some way of keeping the stamps lined up.
It's fully adjustable to and extends out to just below 17cm. It's still way to big for ex-Cheddar though but she'll grow into it eventually.
I'm going to have a go at making one for me. (It'll need to be slightly bigger to fit me though.)
From the side so you can see the little fiddly guide hoops I made from scratch from wire.
The last piece I did last year before having ex-Cheddar. The stone is a piece of scrap glass I fused into the kiln into a little hemisphere. Again planished and hand drilled at the top.
I love planishing so much, it hides a multitude of sins.
A Birthday Present for my best friend G. The larger of the two circles is about 2cm. I punched some little circles and then had at it with the little planishing hammer. I'm really pleased with how it turned out.
My Top Sekrit project for the last few weeks. This is the test piece (so it's the one the Baby Formerly Known as Cheddar will end up with). It came out a lot better then I imagined it would. Need to practice my Hammering more and come up with some way of keeping the stamps lined up.
It's fully adjustable to and extends out to just below 17cm. It's still way to big for ex-Cheddar though but she'll grow into it eventually.
I'm going to have a go at making one for me. (It'll need to be slightly bigger to fit me though.)
From the side so you can see the little fiddly guide hoops I made from scratch from wire.
The last piece I did last year before having ex-Cheddar. The stone is a piece of scrap glass I fused into the kiln into a little hemisphere. Again planished and hand drilled at the top.
I love planishing so much, it hides a multitude of sins.
Random bits
February 16th, 2010 09:08 pm[x] ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
chicklet73 the stamps arrived today, thanks very much! I've already been having a bit of a play with them: http://twitpic.com/13mq0z
[x] Muse were robbed at the Brits
[x] Listen to the B-sides to Muse's Resistance: http://bit.ly/98eqKz
chicklet73 the stamps arrived today, thanks very much! I've already been having a bit of a play with them: http://twitpic.com/13mq0z[x] Muse were robbed at the Brits
[x] Listen to the B-sides to Muse's Resistance: http://bit.ly/98eqKz
