Good News!

Just found out that my latest article proposal (making wax carving tools) has been accepted by Art Jewelry Magazine. I don't know anything about dates yet so keep checking back.

Kindle, calander and carving tools

I recently bought a Kindle Fire.  Amongst a whole list of awesome things I was hoping to be able to do with it was to post to my blog.  So far, I can read a book, email, watch TV, surf the web but not blog.  Unfortunately, Amazon has not developed an app for that.  They did forward my request to their App Store so hopefully...

In the meantime, I have added a reminder to my calendar to post once a week.  Will it happen? Time will tell, but so far I missed the first week (this is the second) and next week we leave for a two month vacation.  We will be on the road for about ten days but after that I should have time to post.

Now for the fun stuff...I have submitted another article proposal for making your own wax carving tools.  Keep your eyes pealed, maybe I will even put some sneak peaks in here.

Frustrating and completion

I had a frustrating day injecting wax.  I had carved a new ring last week and made a silicone mold of it. I also made a mold of a wax that I had carved a long time ago (a square bezel) and never got around to making the mold for it.  After cutting them both open (one of my favorite things to do) I went about the process of injecting them with wax. The square bezel injected beautifully first time and every time save one. The ring, however, was a problem child.  From the get go I was getting large air pockets. I tried every trick that I know to alleviate mold problems, including making air relief cuts, lowering the pressure, raising the pressure, more air relief cuts, dusting with corn starch, more air relief cuts and I even resorted to cutting a vent.  None of this worked.  Of all the tries I only got one good injection of which I was never able to repeat. The only thing left, that I know of, is to lower the wax temperature.  Since this takes time, I will try it tomorrow.  However, I suspect that I did not sprue it right in the first place and that will only be resolved by making a new mold of the one good wax that I got (I broke the original model when I was cutting the mold).

I did finish a pendant that I had made yesterday from a stone that I found on Lopez, so all is not lost,  I am not sure what the stone is but it is an awesome pale green with patches of brown.

Here are pictures of today's work.

These are the failed injections.  The one on the bottom left is the only one that worked.  The one above it would due in a pinch, only a small dent from a collapsed air bubble.  I could build this back up, if I had to.

These are the good injections.  I have never had a mold perform so well.

This piece I titled New Life because of the fern like stampings on the bezel.  It is fabricated from copper.  I don't know what the stone is but it is stunning with its green, brown and copper tones.  I found it, as is, on Lopez.  This piece measures about 7/8" wide by 1" tall.



Serendipity

Recently, my best friend gave me some scrap gold in exchange for a repair I did for her.  I don't like doing repairs but there are some things you just do for friends that you would not otherwise do.

I have not worked with gold much but decided to give it a try using the scrap. First I melted down some of the more mangled stuff and poored it into a wire mold.  Most of the gold missed the mold though and I ended up with a short stubby piece of wire.  I rolled it out anyway, mostly just to see how it would do.  After I rolled it to as small of diameter as I could with the rolling mill I drew it down to 18 gage (this was the gage I had used for the prototype that I made out of copper).  It all seemed to work fine but I did not have nearly enough wire to complete the project, so I remelted it with the stuff I spilled and added some gold cufflinks I had bought at a garage sale (all 14k yellow).

This time I was more careful when pouring and got most of it in the mold.  For some reason, despite preheating the mold in my kiln to the casting temperature, the gold solidified in the mold prior to it being full. I will need to do more research on that.

After acid testing the gold to make sure it was 14k, I rolled  and drew it down to 18 gage.  I used this wire to make some conical spirals.

The spirals looked nice but, being familiar with depletion gilding of sterling, I decided to try doing the same with the gold.  This is where the aha moment of a serendipitous discovery came to me. After about seven heating and pickling cycles, the gold took on the greenish look of green gold.  While I had not anticipated this, I thought it was cool so I did some research to see if I could find out why.

It appears that green gold is made by replacing the copper in the gold, silver and copper alloy normally used for 14k yellow, with silver.  So, by etching out the copper, I essentially did the same thing, although the surface layer of gold would actually be a higher karat than 14.

Here is a picture of the finished product.

I had wanted to put a pearl dangling in the center of the spirals and set a diamond in the studs but laking the diamonds, gold chain and time (they where Christmas presents) I decided they where done.

I left the finish mat because I liked the look of it.  I wish I had not rolled the wire flat.  In the mockups I hammered them.  I liked them alot better that way.

Wax Carving Article

Tomorrow is the big day.  The issue of Art Jewelry, with my wax carving article in it, will hit the news stands.  I hope the article is clear and concise but in case it is not... bring on the questions! I have created a separate page for questions regarding the article so please post your questions there.  I will do my best to answer them in a timely manner.

Nice Surprise!

I had a nice surprise in the mail yesterday.  Even though it is called the January issue and is not due on newsstands until December 6; I received two copies of Art Jewelry magazine with my article in it.  The article looks beautiful and was not too chopped up by the editor.
There is one picture that I would have liked to replace but they did not have time to make the change.  Photo 3 does not show the dividers positioned correctly it should look like this:

Overall, it was a very pleasant experience working with the magazine and I will most likely do it again.  In the mean time, I am working on a video about carving a wax model.

Lopez Island

I have spent most of the month of August on my beloved Lopez Island, WA. This is our sixth summer on the island and the longest stretch.  Next year we are thinking of staying for two months.

I have set up a small studio in the basement of the house we rent and thanks to a gracious landlord, I will be able to leave my tools here.  It is very primitive but functional.

Here is a prototype I did of a pendent.  It is a spin off of one I designed for my beginning student's first setting project. I think it turned out pretty nice but I am not crazy about the size relationship of the stone (carnelian) to the back plate (fire patina copper).  As well the overall size is a bit clunky for me. Pardon the background, I don't have a backdrop here.