Bashed Pendant

I read somewhere that you could use charcoal to make an ingot for wire.

All you do is drill a hole in the charcoal melt the silver then pour it into the hole and voila an ingot.Well I tried with some of my scrap. It never really worked (I dont think I can make the silver hot enough.)

I got a sort of tear drop shape.

So I played with it (and my hammer)

This is what I came out with.

Jampanese thingy

Here is the other thing I was making.

I wanted to etch it. but reading all the literature on how to etch I realise that I am probably not responsible enough to handle such toxic things.

So I drew random squiggles with one of the engraving attachments on my drill. This gave me a very subtle effect which I like.

It should have a loop on the bottom for the leather to go through. But I just could not make it stay there. So I ditched that idea for the moment. Now what to make next?

Lazy weekend

Yesterday we all went off and swam the midmar mile.
The weather was perfect.
I really enjoyed my swim. So much that I think I had my worst time ever. I dont know what my time was because instead of setting the stop watch I changed the time on my watch. So when I looked to see how long it took me it was about 80 hours.
We had a picnic afterwards. It was a lovely day.

Last night we had a major storm which flooded my work room. So instead of making jewellery I had a major clean up. organised some of the chaos that defines me.

The weather has been awful today I feel sorry for all those people who swam the mile today.
Andrew heard that the weather was the worst weather for midmar in twenty years. I am glad I swam yesterday.

resin and silver pendant

I went through a few colour combinations before I was happy with this one.

progress

I have had a very busy weekend. Despite the heat.
Still in the process of making 2 new pieces.
The first is an idea that I got out of art Jewellery magazine. only they use clay and I am using sheet metal.
I want to etch it but I need to do my homework first on where to find stuff to etch with.
When I have done this I will post a pic.

The other is a disc shaped silver pendant. I used square wire (which I made with my new square draw plate) to make a frame on the disc with random swirls inside. I soldered the frame and swirls onto the disc. I am in the process of filling the swirls with resin (dyed with powder paint) I have discovered that the resin makes the paint a lot darker then I thought. So I will need to experiment more with mixing. I have also found that it is wise to do one colour at a time which is a pain as drying time is about 72 hours. And if you get proportions wrong the resin wont set and you will have to start all over again.
So that is where I am at. Will post pics as soon as I am done.