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.