In the Facebook group Metalsmith Coffee House, that I am a member of, a group project was started and I have decided to join in. 

Here is the project description: 
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A Hundred for One. CERF+ Project
Humanity at its best. One hundred souls calling through the woods in the bitter cold to save just one that might be lost. The Vulcans have a saying. "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of one or few." but humanity in it's most beautiful chaos will do just the opposite. This project's seed idea was as a gift translated as best I knew to say thank you. I had no idea that people would even reply. I felt that the sacrifice of time and resource would be too much for many and coupled with the sad fact that the world is saturated with scams I felt maybe two people would participate. That couldn't be further from the truth. 100 links by 100 people is the chain that symbolizes a gift of what humanity at it's best should be known for....That we are not Vulcans and we will do the insane if we feel it can make just the slightest bit of difference.  

Requirements:  

• Size:  No more than 3". It must have holes to accommodate a jump ring that is 10mm outer diameter and 10 gauge or 2.59mm.  Please include connector jump rings.
• Metal:  Varying metals will add character...so, use whatever metal you want.

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The hope is that when the chain is done, a book will be published and that the chain might get displayed in a museum or gallery with all proceeds going to CERF+.

So what is my "link"? It is a small medallion using chasing & repousse of course.   I will not post, at this time, images of many of the links already sent in (because of copyrights and permission and all of that) .   I started this on Saturday morning with a design and now on Monday night, it is 99% complete. I just have to stamp it and then seal it. 

And because of my Year of Repousse project, I can say that project #2 has been completed.

Project Name: Un Piccolo Calamario
Material: Sterling Silver 20 gauge sheet and 12 gauge square wire. Liver of Sulfur patina.
Major Points:
Form frame and solder to sheet.
Chasing & Repousse of design
Saw and file off extra silver sheet
Solder on end links
Patina
Lessons Learned:  
To get sides straight and parallel anneal wire well and pull between to dowels to straighten.
If you put your mind to it, you can get a lot done in THREE DAYS.

Here are the process picture of mine, though so enjoy.  As usual, click a picture to view it larger and to see the caption, then you can scroll through all of them. 

(if you do not know what this is, read this post) 

The first project is completed.   Yes, I admit it, this project was started last year but it was completed THIS year, so I am counting it.  

Project Name: The  Maru Bishamon Tool Canister
Material: Copper Tubing (1.5" ID, ~15g wall), Bronze Sheet.
Major Points:
Raised dome of bronze for the top. 
Soldered dome, bottom bronze plate, and inner sleeve for a pressure fit. 
Chased lines of design and deep chasing of intersecting lines.
Brushed (brass) for surface finish.
Sculpt Nouveau solvent dye in chased areas. 
Related Posts:  Maru Bishamon
Lessons Learned: Use a slightly thinner copper pipe. Solvent Dye bled into the brass brushed lines.

So maybe later tonight I will write more, stay tuned. 
But to keep you wondering here are some tools I am using 

Over the past few posts, I have shown you a vessel (here and here) that I made. This is only the vessel in almost 2 years, if not more. Although, these have been sunk, not raised.  Part of the reason for this was the focusing on the Chasing & Repousse.  Now that I have committed my self to THE YEAR of Chasing & Repousse I figured I had to start somewhere. 

During this time, I have also had a new sinking bowl bowl made for me by John Wirth and I used it to finish up the shape despite that I had started to planish it;  but it was still a bit uneven so it has to be trued.  The sinking bowl worked like a dream and even though one wall is a bit higher than rest, that can be cleaned up with some filing and sanding. 

As a side note, over on FB, had a conversation about the difference between dapping vs sinking where someone said that since I not using dapping punches it was sinking. I do use a dapping punch as well as wooden mallets, as can be seen in the picture below…  Per Wikipedia, the terms are interchangeable.

Last night (Saturday)  I did the planishing. 

Today I will lay out the design and then next week I can start the lining. 

Here are the pictures, as usual. 

There is always maintenance work to be done.
..Put tools away
…Put the scrap metal in the collection can
….Accounting
…..Write a blog post

But the one that takes a bit of time is doing maintenance on hammers.  I actually like to work on my hammers but with my busy schedule, this is a task that is put off until I have more than one to work on. 

I now have 2 hammers that need work on the hammer faces and another 2 that need to have the handles that have to modified.  

The planishing hammer below needs a deep scratch removed. This is a hammer I picked up off of eBay and it has been sitting, ignored for over a year.

Then hammer below that is one of my forging hammers. It has/had a big ding, which has been partly removed but I never finished the work.

Lastly, the chasing hammer I picked up at AllCraft, in NYC needs the handle modified and under that is a Japanese wood mallet. The handle is too long so it must be cut down. It is under the chasing hammer so you can see how much I have to cut off.

I can remove the dings from the hammer faces today, it is the time to re-polish that will be long. I can work on the polishing during the week, when I get home from the day job.  The hammer handle mods I can also do today. All this work will be done in "machine" area of my shop since it generates the most schmutz (it is a great yiddish word isn't it?)