I just did a final post over at my other blog Adventures of an Aspiring Silversmith. You can read all about the copper tray I finished.
If you want to see the tray, go to Pictures - Metal Work 

It's NYE and here in So. Cal, it is 60F at our house at 11 am and it's getting warmer. In Scotland it is freezing - 32F or ZERO C, and this is warm for them.  


As I have said, Elisa lives in a bump in the road cause all that's there are a few farms, homes, a church (called a Kirk in them there parts), a small community hall and the road that goes through it all.  The snow has been so bad and the area is such a low priority; that the road has not been plowed or had grit put down in almost 2 weeks, and going on to three. 


Go over to the Views of Scotland page and you can see a few new pictures that Elisa took today. She put on a few layers, walked down the driveway and into the road, with out slipping I might add, and took four pictures so where here in the warmer climates can see what we are missing.


UPDATE: She just sent a few more!

Yesterday afternoon I finished my bowl and for the first time, I actually felt like  a metalsmith, classification - Copper.  I have not taken the risk of silver YET.

Saturday I was able to finish 2 rounds of hammering and annealing. I did find that I did not get as tired but damn, that 16 gauge is hard to work with so after the second anneal, I was rather proud of myself as it really was looking like a bowl at this point but I left it in the pickel pot and went upstairs to veg with a good murder mystery DVD.

Sunday morning I took the bowl out of the pickel, cleaned it up and was able to get a single trip around the bowl done before noon but then stopped as I had company coming. I went back to the hammering at about 5-ish, went around the bowl 2 more times and then decided I should stop - the shape was good.

Now during all of this, I had curved the extra point outward and down so it did not interfere with the hammering or my hand.  On this last round I had to flatten it out as it was preventing me from getting a curve on the side where the point was jutting out. It was then onto planishing and it being only 6pm, I decided to finish.

Small hammer tap's, around and around I went slowly working my way from the center bottom moving outwards and upwards to the rim. Then I got to the point - literally and I could not bend it in a curve outward and down.

I'm not implying that it was physical NOT - I was capable of doing .

It was an emotional thing.

Here was this bowl with a point sticking up in the air and then I just knew it had to be curved over to the inside. I not only had to curve it over inward, it's shape, across it's base, had to be curved to follow the imaginary rim as well.

I resisted re-annealing the point and luckily since I had not done any hammering on it since I started this last round, I found that I could use my forging hammer and get a curve into it. Then I placed the point over the horn of my anvil and gently beat it down and over.

And it sang it's name to me - Teardrop, and I knew I was a metalsmith at that point. It was at 7:30 pm on December 27, 2009.

I went upstairs to my office. I air planished a flat on the bottom and with 2 files and gently de-burred the rim inside and out. I rounded ever so slightly the point of the tear.

I was done.

I still have to stamp my name on the bottom and yes, this is not the most professional pictures but here it is.  There are a few more of the Teardrop on the Metals page under the Pictures menu

BTW, I now want to make more of them!

At this point only 3 days have gone by but with tomorrow it will be four - four wonderful days to sleep late, stay in my jammies {sorry if that is TMI!] and playing with metals.

Thursday, I started a repousse piece for a friend, which I finished yesterday. It is only the third piece I have done. The first piece, the leaf, was in the Nancy Megan Corwin workshop the weekend of December 5th and 6th. The second piece was a Trinity celtic knot - which I totally messed up.

I bought the starter set of tools from MettleWorks [ http://www.mettleworks.com] on Monday the 7th and they arrived in 3 days. So these 10 tools were all I had at my disposal.  I started a Trinity Celtic Knot and I had the lining done in one night and then over the next two nights I had most of the repousse done on the back. It fit on a 3.5" square and sat nicely in the pitch pot. Then on Sunday the 13th, I turned it over and started the undercutting and planishing. I then [you know where this is going] I decided that I wanted the domed area of the knot a bit more angular. I SHOULD HAVE stopped and turned it back over, but did I do that noooooooo! I now have a Trinity knot that is a great example of what NOT [sorry for the pun] to do!

It was back to the drawing board for me! Which is why I started a new piece on Thursday.  

I just finished cleaning it up and de-warping it.

Today I went back to a bowl I started sinking on December 12th. I grabbed the wrong gauge sheet 16 - it should have been 18! and by the time I had sawed out half the circle (6" diameter) and gone though 4 saw blades - that was when I figured something was not correct.  Working with the thicker gauge really is harder to work with - it takes longer to anneal it, harder to hammer and form and my arms get tired sooner so I also have to take breaks more often [which is why I blogging now!].

The bowl is only halfway sunk. I have at least 2 or 3 more complete rounds to go before I even start planishing.  I figure I can get another round done today, a round or two tomorrow, Sunday. And if all goes well, next weekend I can true it up, planish it and form the handle which is a corner that I did not cut round. This corner only adds to the complexity since it prevents the shape from forming easily and then when get near it with the hammering, it curls in ward making the bowl hard to hold.

Over this year I have learned the following:

• Silver Soldering
• Make chain maille and other types of chains
• Bezel set stones
• Braid silver
• Make a ring, no make that rings of several different types
• Alloy and cast my own ingots
• Use a rolling mill; make wire, sheet and do roller printing.
• Use a hydraulic press
• Basic fold forming
• Basic Chasing & Repousse
• Sink a bowl
• Raise metal (I did this last week, way cool)
• NOT to rush with my work
• Take notes and pictures
• Be happy when it fails and be happier when it succeeds
• Purchase metal when the price is low, save all your scrap and dust and recast these scraps when the price is high.
• Be thankful to my husband for being so supportive when I spend money to do all of this!

Happy New Year to you all, and may next year be great for YOU and your craft

I have been a bad person, I started this blog months ago and I have not been keeping up. Between the day job, learning to be a silver (metal) smith, over committing myself to help friends - well it all just got away from me.

I promise to do better in 2010!

I am also going to be expanding the site over the next few weeks. I want to add more pictures from my hobbies - specifically the smithing and sewing.  I am also going to be putting up a store so you can buy my creations.

Have a joyous holiday, no matter what you observe, and have a great start to YOUR New Year.