I am done with the cuff, not *done* but DONE as in completed. 

Last Sunday, I trimmed the corners, so the cuff would be easier to put on, and then soldered on the end bars.  Then it was finishing the filing and sanding. Afterwards I polished it and applied a liver of sulfur patina.  I was not happy with the colors I was getting, it was too gray, so I took the cuff and put it into the pickle to remove some of the patina and reapplied it, I did get some blues but was still not happy so I waited until this weekend to remove it reapply again - that would be application number three. 

On Friday, since I was off from work (YEA, THREE DAY WEEKEND) I removed the patina, again, and then prepared my patina and very carefully applied it.  Friday night I left the cuff in very cold water to neutralize and to arrest the reaction. 

Saturday I had my second class in black smithing, we made a stake turner, and so I had to wait until I returned home to remove the patina from the squid body and tentacles.  I used a small polishing wheel in a hand tool and very carefully buffed off the patina. I had a couple of slips and thus removed some patina on the back ground - oops. 

There were too many of these dings for me so I went back down stairs, mixed up some more patina and did another application (number 4) but this time I did not remove what I already had.  As a result, yes the squid got covered again, but the background went even more blue! And I was happy again.  This time when I removed the patina from the squid I used the knife edged polishing disk and used my hand to protect the background from getting dinged.  

I now have to take some good pictures. I want to photo stitch them together so you can see all of it at once. But in the mean time, here are some for you to doooooolllllllll over. 

Since my raising skills are getting better and I am much more comfortable adding curves and angles to my vessels, I am now into buying stakes that will assist me in these techniques.

Someone on eBay was selling their wife's stakes and hammers. Via email, since I had some questions about them, I found out that yes, she had been a metalsmith but was no longer working in metal. 

There were probably a dozen different stakes up for auction but 4 really caught my eye. Three stakes were for angle raising and one was a spoon stake.

So I set my bids and watched the auctions for a week.  I WON all four.

They arrived on Wednesday and my husband, who is my support crew in this endeavor, took them to the garage to polish up the surfaces. Here are a before and after picture of the 3 larger stakes (click on the images to get a bigger picture).

A friend has asked me how many stakes and hammers I have now, I to be honest I don't know the count of either. So later today I will take inventory and post pictures and numbers.

Last weekend I had an advanced chasing & repousse class with Nancy Megan Corwin. She was teaching an introduction class and I had her permission to attend but I would be working in an independent capacity along side the other students. 

The weekend prior to the workshop I spent a good eight hours drawing up my squid - which was the new design I had chosen for my project. I originally was going to do a Koi, but then I saw a squid on some science show and thought that would be different on a cuff, especially if it look like it was wrapped around it. 

So on Friday morning, I got up at 7:00, I was out of the house by 7:30 am and arrived in San Diego around 8:45 am with plenty of time to get settled into a workbench and meet the other students, and Megan who I had seen in over a year.

While Megan gave her first demonstration, I cut my silver sheet and square wire and then soldered the wire onto the sheet. I traced the design onto the silver and then lined it from the front. This took me until lunch time but before I took my break, I annealed the silver and put it back into the pitch pot. After lunch I was able to start the repousse on the back. I completed the  initial pushing just before 5:00pm so again I pulled the cuff out of the pitch, annealed it and put it back into the pitch right side up so I could clean up the lining first thing on Saturday. I then went to dinner with Randee a weaving friend.

Again on Saturday, I was up at 7 and in San Diego by 9 ready to resume the work on the cuff.  I did the lining and then once again flipped it over to do another (and final) round of repousse from the back. I did not break for lunch and *almost* completed the repousse in the afternoon and in time to join the class in a tool making session. I made an under cutting tool because I could then use it in the finishing of the design.  We worked until around 6pm and then 4 students and Megan went out for dinner - Thai and it was some yummy food as there was a lobster special that night and we know how Laurie and her bunny like lob-stah!

Sunday I arrived at the studio around 8:30 because I had a lot of work to do. I finished the final repousse round and then I annealed, yes again, the cuff and put it back into the pitch right side up. I then started to under cut the design and also make sure I was making clean smooth lines. Once that was done I was able to planish the squid. I left the actual body alone because the repousse had given it a really nice smooth but bulbous texture. On the arms, I planished but left a slight dimpled texture on some. On the 2 long tentacles, I shaped and planished the ends smooth and even added a few little circles as suckers. After all of this, I was able to tackle the texturing of the background.  

At around 3:00 pm on Sunday afternoon, the texturing was done.  I popped it off the pitch, clean it and then annealed it so we could then form it into the cuff.   This had to be done very slowly as the cuff could kink and with all the repousse, the silver is actually harder to bend.  Megan did most of the bending and I held it in place on the mandrel as we slowly formed and hammers with a leather mallet. While this was happening, most of the other students were watching.  Watching the bending was good for them as several remarked, as this allowed them to see how to do this, and what an advanced student could do and where practice could take them. 

Around this time, many of us were talking money. I have sold one of my crumpled cuffs off my wrist, so we were theorizing what I would sell this cuff for IF the price was correct. We all bantered around some prices and finally I asked Megan "If this was in a gallery, would do you think this should be priced at?" And guess what her answer was?
 
         TWENTY FIVE HUNDRED TO THREE THOUSAND DOLLARS!

How is that for an ego boost, and I know she was serious.

At 4:30 pm, class was over, Megan left to catch her plane home, I went out to dinner with a few of the other students and then went home to show my husband the fruits of my labor.

Today I filed the extra silver (beyond the wire frame) off and tomorrow I will solder the end wires and add a patina.  I want a bluish/purple background with the squid silver that way it looks like it is swimming in the ocean.

I use to do tap dancing but that is not the tappin' I am talking about.
Tomorrow is the first day of three days for Chasing & Repousse with Nancy Mega Corwin.

I have spent most of last Sunday working on this drawing so stay tuned for pictures of the in-process and hopefully completed bracelet.  But then again I could end up doing something else...

[It is going to be a squid wrapped around a cuff bracelet.]

Last Saturday I went up to LA for a hot forging fold forming session at Adams Forge. Not only was this the first time I was there, it was in their new digs. The session started at 6:00pm and was to go until 9:00pm but of course when playing with hammers, metal and heat - time flies and we stayed until 11:00pm!

Pat Downing was there as our leader and I met many new folks who also hung out at the forge. The big surprise was that one of the people there was also at the same session of Haystack last summer. He was in the blacksmith group (I was in metals) but we did have several conversations while we were there and it was nice to talk and catch up on what we have been doing since then.

Here are pictures of what happened.