The second part of this unit is to make a brooch with a set stone and pin back.
This week we had a demonstration on making pin backs - using draw plates to get the tubing the right size for a string steel wire, cutting two pieces of tube to hold the pin wire, bending the wire and sharpening it, making the catch and soldering it all in place.

I decided to make a sample pin, for me, so I could practice the process before actually doing it on the brooch I am making.  Let me tell you cutting tiny tubing to 3mm and 6mm is not fun because if you are not careful it will fall on the floor and you will NEVER EVER FIND IT!!! 

For my pin, I decided to us an impression die I have of a small fish. I pressed into 18 gauge copper and cut out an oval. Then polished it to about 600 grit. I did not do a high shine polish because some texture enhanced the fish because, I super heated the copper and quenched it very fast to get the Red, Copper II Oxide on the front face. I then had to use a coarse grit spider wheel to remove the oxide on the brooch back, around the fish but NOT the fish.  I then soldered the catch and the pin tubes onto the brooch back, bent and set the wire and TA-DA I have a new pin to put on my winter hat.
​

The first unit in Intermediate metals is to make a brooch with at least one set cabochon and other items and a custom pinback. But before we do that we had 3 demonstrations on Tab, Bezel, and Prong settings. Then we were to make sample pieces using a tab and either a bezel or prong settings. Of course I did all three since doing so results in 10 extra credits. I did the tab setting last Friday and started on the prong setting using an Ammonite that I got at the Tucson gem show eons ago. I finished the shaping the frame and then soldering it closed and added the prongs and ring on Monday. Today I finished setting the Ammonite and did the bezel set stone.  It is due Tuesday.

Now I can start the layout of the brooch, I did the design yesterday. 

Over three years ago, Kevin of PotterUSA did a video on a deep draw kit he was going to sell. Being the metal nerd I am, I had to buy one, which I did! He did not sell many of them and soon afterwards, maybe less than a month, they were no longer in stock and are no longer sold.  Here is a link to see him showing how to use it. 

Sadly, life got in the way and I never made anything with it but that changed today. 

I started with 18g copper and annealed it.
Next I softened the edge of the silhouette die that goes agains the copper sheet. Pictures 1 & 2
I layered urethane and a forming disc in the hydraulic press and created the base for the round "dish". Pictures 3 & 4
I annealed and pressed again to get a good crisp edge
Anneal again
Then it was place TWO discs on the platen copper on top of that and then the silhouette die - PRESS. Pictures 5 & 6 
Anneal 
Repeat with 2 discs. Pictures 7 & 8
Anneal
Now use 3 disks and the steel ring to press; the steel ring provides space for the base to not "bottom out".
It pressed well but sadly the base then split from the wall. Remaining pictures
I will now soften the edges on the disc's to help prevent the splitting and do the press, with the ring, with an annealing in two steps. 

BUT I GOT IT TO WORK!!!! 
Time to try another piece of copper.​

The semester ended, for me on December 8. I had both of my *finals* that day. 
First up was Beginning Metals where I presented my spinner ring. The brief was to create something that represented a social norm dysfunction and oh, it also had to have a hollow component. I decided to make a artsy-fartsy ring that was also a fidget/spinner. A person could wear the ring when at work or out an event and play with it and (hopefully) not get looked at for playing with a spinner *toy*.    I drew my prototype in Rhino as an personal challenge.  Then I set out to make it. Even though I knew I could do make it during class time since we had over 3 weeks to work on it, I did most of the work at home, in my studio because I found the noise of the class distracting when I really needed to focus - such as when soldering. What I did in class what sawing, filing, and some prototyping.   I received an A in the class and here is a picture of the ring

The next project in Beginning Metal is to use mixed materials which mean metal and something that's NOT (non-ferrous?) metal - plastic, leather, wood, fabric, or food perhaps???? 

Which means there has to be rivets involved. I have not done any riveting in oh maybe 15+ years. Let me correct that, I have riveted but I have used pop-rivets or 2-part rivets or prepared rivets that will flare; most of these were on leather project.   For this project we have MAKE OUR OWN RIVETS out of wire or tubing.  And because it's mix material we have to make really, really, really tiny washers to go between the rivet and the non-metal material. 

As a warm up exercise we were given the assignment to make a charm or small pin using rivets and of course mixed materials.  This weekend I pulled out some 20 gauge copper and brass, some leather scraps, and some left over ends from colored cable ties.  I started with cutting out some pieces from the 20 gauge as my pin/charm base. I then drilled holes in the base and my other materials. I even drilled holes in other 20 gauge to fit my wire and tubing so I could then punch out those washers. I drilled holes equivalent to 14 gauge as that's what I had in the wire and tubing.  I cut 2 leather circles out and punch holes in them, and again drilled holes in the cable tie ends.  Next up was figuring out how long to cut the wire and tubing for the various riveting attempts. 

First up was just riveting a washer to base. Next was riveting a cable tie end to the base. I then riveted leather followed by leather and 2 cable ties. The last one was 4 cable ties. Oh yes, there were many failures along the way - either the tube or wire bent because it was too long, or the rivet fell out because it was too short and could not flare over the sheet metal,  and many many many dropped proto-rivets on the floor but along the way, while looking for them, on the floor, I found a CZ I lost weeks ago on the ring project YIPEE but I never found one of the proto-rivets.

Maybe when I get to the end of the actual project I will not hate them as much but I will probably never, ever love making and using rivets on my silversmithing projects!!

For the latest module in the Digital Fabrication class we have continued to work in Rhino to create tracings to cut vinyl with. Once we took pictures of ourselves, outside,  we decided what would be black and "white" - or clear. The picture is then imported into Rhino and the tracings made. From there we made them life sized and prepared the pieces to be cut; no piece of vinyl could be wider than 25 inches but could be as long as we needed so we had to plan wisely.  After cutting the vinyl we weeded, remove, what would be clear and then applied very sticky transfer paper. We spent an entire class working in teams to peel off the backing paper, position a piece on the wall, window, or floor - sticking it down and then peel off the backing paper making sure there were no wrinkles or bubbles.  My pieces are me stretching, the deer, and some grass which was also shared with the other students. I did not take my pictures in Sewell park but outside my house in Canyon Lake. The description of the exhibition and the Sewell park sign were made and applied by our teacher and teaching assistant.  The last few pictures show me applying the deer to the wall.

For the past 2 weeks, in Beginning Metals, we have been working on hollow rings or a way to learning sawing, soldering with hard, medium, and soft solder, filing, and finishing.  Yes, I do know these things BUT I have never made a hollow ring before so that was what I WAS LEARNING.

First we measured a finger for the ring hole and soldered it round and to one side of the ring, using hard solder. Then it was figure out what the side wall(s) would be and using various round pliers and round mandrels, form the side piece and solder it to the same piece of metal as the ring hole. It was on my way home that night that I thought I wanted to texture my surfaces so what did I do... I redid what I did in class and used my rolling mill to put a spiral texture on all the exterior metal; I unsoldered the ring band, cleaned it up and re-used it.  I drilled some air holes to be a decorative element and using a setting burr, counter sunk them.  I was getting ready to solder the other (shall we say back plate on) side on when I had the idea to do tube sets over the holes... This is when I realized that setting the stones would be rather difficult since it was a hollow ring. MY engineering kicked in and thought that IF I soldered a support wall, inside, and around the holes, it would provide the support I needed, which I did. And... then I realized I had more than enough 4mm CZ's but not enough tube settings and ordered them from Rio; I would have to use silver because they don't make brass one and I was not going to make them either. While waiting for the settings to arrive, I did the soldering of the back plate, trimmed and removed the extra metal. Yesterday the settings arrived and today I soldered them on; I had a little bit of solder creep and removed what I could because I forgot to mask the seams with white out; you can see it in the last few pictures. Then I set a green, yellow, purple, and lavender stone on each side.

First - Tomorrow starts the 3rd week of classes. I am glad I am only taking two classes as I have lot's of time for me, at home. In Beginning Metals we just finished our first project which was to saw and file a peace symbol. We were given a paper template with a round symbol on it but over the weekend I decide to make a bigger one based upon the one I had bought in Greenwich Village (that's in NYC) in the late 60's. In Digital Fabrication we are learning how to use Rhino 8 which is a 3D, and 2D, software package that can create files used by digital cutting machines, like a Cricut, laser cutters, 3D printers, or various types of CNC (Computer Numeric Control) machines like lathes, routers, etc. We really haven't made anything thing but that should happen soon.

Then this week on my non-school days, I made making things to sell via the Metals Guild (a.k.a. club) in a gallery in Austin or at the Market Days in San Marcos on the 2nd Saturday's of the month. Items for the gallery will be mostly silver and for the Market Days they will be copper and brass. 

​And today I made a large lentil bead for a friends daughter, as a pocket fidget thingy.

​

Next week classes start at Texas State and I am more than ready for them. 
During my last few weeks of freedom, since returning from my Metal Spinning Workshop, I have been doing a bit more knitting, drawing, and attempting to make some metal stuff.

There is a metals guild/club at school and they have pop-up sales every once and a while so I thought I would use this time to make some cuffs that I could sell and make a few extra bucks. I went through my copper and brass metal and found leftovers from larger pieces of sheet that I could use. I annealed it all and then selected the rolling mill plates that I was going to use and ran them through my rolling mill. Next I pulled out the pancake dies to cut/stamp the bracelets out with the hydraulic press. This is where it all went wrong. All the metal got stuck in the pancake dies with only half of the shape cut. With much frustration I was able to free the metal but to be honest I am done with these pancake dies! I also realized that I enjoy the long and time consuming process of making cuff's without a hydraulic press. 

I have also spent time thinking more about making, art, and the process to the finished object. This is what I was thinking about on the 2 day drive to and from the workshop. I am really thinking that. for me, I enjoy the learning and the process more than making ART and a finished piece. Yes, I do make things for me and yes, I do occasionally sell some of my stuff but it isn't about making a living at this; it isn't about being famous and having my work in a museum or gallery, it is about learning and mastering a skill.  I am also going to re-focus my attention on those things I do enjoy making. 

I am now going through my tools and equipment and selling those items I don't need because I am not going to use them any more or never have used them.  ​ 

I went to Gatlinburg, TN to attend a metal's workshop at Arrowmont School of Arts & Crafts! I signed up to take Small-Scale Metal Spinning something I have seen done but had no opportunity to try or learn.
I decided to drive because who doesn't like a good road trip. It was a 2 day drive though some wonderful scenery and another 2 days back.  I signed up for a single room since at my age I can get up several times in the night to use the bathroom AND I did not want to be kept awake by a roommate(s) talking or coming in late if I had gone to bed very early.

I arrived Sunday afternoon and settled into my room. After dinner we had a school orientation and our workshop introductions.  There were 10 of us in the workshop.  Six women and four men. 8 of us were metalsmiths and 2 were wood turners. Our teacher is a Professor at North Texas University and he's a master metal spinner.  We were using small wood lathes that had special centering chucks and wood forms (also called chucks) that we form the metal against. We had a tool kit of: 5 disks each of aluminum, copper, and pewter (3" 20 gauge), wax for lubrication, an application brush, a wood form/chuck, follower chuck, spinning spoon, another "blank" chuck, and a wood turning kit for when where were ready to make our own chuck.  I did bring some extra copper of 18 and 20 gauge and 2 - 3" disks of 20 gauge sterling silver.

Monday started with demo's on how to spin and lots of questions from us. We were to start with aluminum. We first annealed the 3" 20 gauge disk and put it in our lathes. We learned about centering the disk, lubricating the metal and how to hold and where to put the spoon tool against the metal so we could push and apply pressure to fold the metal over from the base and form it into a "hollow form". There is more annealing along the way, more lube, and how to smooooooth out ridges that can result. All of this also stretches the metal and IF you push too much your thin the metal and then it will rip. It can also rip if you haven't annealed again or need more lube.  Yes, to start you make lots of scrap!  Some of my aluminum started off good but most eventually ripped - IT IS A LEARNING EXPERIENCE and a frustrating one that had me wondering if I could do it at all. 

It's a matter of thinking of what you are doing, going slow, annealing and lubing more than you expect and then it ALL WORKS YIPEEEEE and then it doesn't. Think of Hans Solo saying to Luke Skywalker in the Millenium Falcon: "Don't get cocky kid."

Tuesday I finished spinning my last piece of aluminum and started on the copper.  I actually made pieces with no rips or tears. We had another demo, in the metals tool room on how to use some stakes, hammers, and anvils to smooth out the ripples one can get at the un-spun edge if pushing the metal too much. I was drooling over all the stakes and hammers, yes it was major tool porn.  Then some of use started to work on a wood lathe, to make our own form/chuck. I went for a wide base with semi-straight side. The side must be slightly angled with NO indents or you can't get your metal off the chuck.  There are chucks that have indents that do come apart like a puzzle so the chuck can be removed from the narrow parts.  I was able to spin a disk of pewter and copper on my chuck that resulted in a nice shallow round dish.  We also had a demo on not just making vessels but turning them into art pieces by adding thing to them. We were shown regular and pop-rivets, micro-hardware like nuts, bolts, and screws, and soldering or welding the pewter using a micro-torch. I took one of my ripped copper pieces and put a pop-rivet band aid on it. I also took a ripped pewter piece and welded some 3 pieces of scrap pewter to the rim and turned it into a crash landed UFO. 

The remaining days were all spinning and talking to everyone about what they figured out. Some of us traded chucks, to make different shapes and forms. We had another demo on back spinning and rolling the edge. I tried the back spinning, which was a success, but did not roll an edge. I also took a 4" disk of 18 gauge copper and spun it. DAMN, 18 gauge is hard and required not only so much force but again, more annealing. I was able to finish this without rips or tears, again YEAH ME.

Late Thursday I decided to try SILVER which even the teacher said he wouldn't do but another student had brought silver too and she, despite having ripped one or two pieces, was making pieces. I had to go slow and think about what I was trying to do; I also made the decision to anneal quite often.  With my chuck I was able to spin another small dish - YEAH ME. Then using someone else's chuck that was smaller on the base than mine and had more taper BUT was bigger than the chuck I started on I used my second piece of silver. I got a good base and annealed to then work forming the body but ripples started to form around the edge; had I pushed to much metal up too fast??. I was so fearful of ripping I took it off the machine and annealed a third time and while looking at it I realized that I liked what had happened and so I decided to stop. As my final piece I went with a 5" 20 gauge copper disk BUT we all had run out of the wax lube and had to use dish soap which does work but many of us found it it wears off faster thus allowing the spoon too to grab the metal and rip it - as I found out on this last piece of copper. 

I was now done. It was Friday and despite many other students trying to finish pieces I cleaned up my pieces, machine and work area.

Over on Kernology you can read about the other stuff I did, outside of workshop.