Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Working on....

some new pieces to put up on JewelryLessons and at the same time piecing together another tutorial as the work progresses.  Making the usual bunch of mistakes so I can tell others what not to do!  As usual, I do everything backwards, before getting things to go forward in a reasonable series of steps.


Playing around with fire and putting flame patina on some copper pieces.  Kinda fun to do that. You never quite know what the outcome will be.  Apply a bit of heat, pull away the torch and watch to color form as the piece cools.


Some JAX patinas have arrived.  I may play around with those this weekend.  You can finally buy small quantities of these patinas without having to pay for hazardous material shipping costs.


Ordered out some Thompson's enamel.  Colors that I think will look good with some of the copper pieces I'm working on.  We shall see what happens.


Also on the long list of color experiments are the Adirondak inks I got in two months ago.  Just haven't had the time to play around with those, either.  


And then there's all kinds of color products that have been sitting idle from years past when I was doing other artwork, plus some metal foils.

Wednesday, March 14, 2012

Bench Pin

As promised a view of my bench pin.  The idea came from watching a Japanese artist on YouTube, so I can't take credit for it.  Gone, the ubiquitous "V"-slot, and the tapered portion of the standard bench pin.  I have it clamped to the old pin with a large C-clamp.  It may look unhandy but the clamp doesn't get in the way.  The pin needs a bit of refinement.  The sharp corners will have to go!  I did myself a mischief bending over to pick up dropped piece of metal and put a dent in the forehead.  A regulation  oowwie!  Anyway, the pin is made of 1/2 inch maple, 6 3/4 inch wide, 9 inches long.  Doesn't have to be those dimensions, I just happened to have some maple that wide and cut off a piece.  The slot is 1/8th inch wide and 5 inches long.


This design gives ever so much better support when sawing small pieces.


Once again, I have been  remiss in welcoming new followers, so hey, Thanks for becoming a follower!

Sunday, March 11, 2012

Back at last

Been very busy attempting to write a tutorial for JewelryLessons.com and it was a real chore to do.  Rewrite, rewrite, and rewrite.  Finally got it finished and submitted, only to do it again, and again, and finally success.  Now there's folks that want me to do another one.  This one ain't gonna be a freebie.  Anyone who wants it will have to part with a bit coin.  Way too much work otherwise to do it for free.  Anyway, I will try to post something a little more often.  Stay tuned for a home made bench pin with a whole different look.  I think you will fine it interesting.  I'll put up a pic in a couple days.  Till then, take care, be happy and do good work.