The day started off with an overview of the actual casting process. Kim did a great job showing us step-by-step how to clean the silver, melt it in the crucible and how to pour it into the mold. Everyone was VERY exited to see the results of our labors. Although I’m very comfortable using a torch, there was something about not being my studio, with my tools that made things feel little awkward.
The size of the torch seemed huge compared to my Smith Little Torch However, after a couple of pours I adjusted to it. I melted the silver and poured. Next we waited a bit, then quenched the flasks to release our treasures. Everyone had success with their designs, well except for me 🙁 Notice the POOP sign in the work station. If you don’t know what POOP is find out! Here is the result of my pour.
After some discussion and self observation, we think that my pour was not fast enough. I think I hesitated just slightly while I was pouring which caused the metal to cool a bit and clog the pour. Drats! But a learning process indeed. It was still fun to be go through the process. So next on the agenda I needed to figure out what to do with my ring parts. Ok time to turn lemons into lemonaide.
The rest of day Kim gave us impromptu demos on water casting and broom casting! What a treat that was! Kim shares my love of experimenting and like me has no fear when doing so because we keep our expectations in check. “Let’s try it and see what happens” …”as long as it’s safe! ” So we proceeded to experiment with water casting and broom casting. What fun it was to melt the metal and pour into water and with broom casting we get to pour molten silver into a bundle of straw!
- Broom Casting
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Michelle’s broom cast piece
Apologies for the poor quality photos above! Here are the results of my lemons into lemonaid. Simply saw off the ring shank, on the left and right sides, saw off the sprue, do a little bit of filing, well …a lot of filing, toss it in the magnetic finisher and viola! A sterling pendant! ( pun intended! ) 🙂
I love the ring idea so much I’m going to make it in metal clay! This time my pour won’t make a difference at all! All in all it was a fun and informative class! I’m looking forward to doing more casting.