observations on casting and outher stuff...

  The Cuff Links have been cast!!! Casting is fun but quite scary. There’s a huge torch that is used to heat the metal, it’s about three times the size of the normal ones, it has a huge tip and you have to light it in a vent so the flame does not go anywhere. The most alarming thing is when you light it, it makes this large pop. Luckily, I did not have to handle the torch, the teacher did and did most of it as this was our first time, we just handed her stuff.

 So these are the wax models. The wax wires are called spurs and they help the hot metal flow to every point.

You then wax them onto the hard rubber base. The metal cylinder then goes over the mold like this…

So at this point you pour in investment, it’s like way more toxic plaster. It sets up in ten minutes but to fully dry it takes a bit longer so up until this point I did all this last Thursday.  They set up over the weekend and then this morning they were put in the kiln (by Tony the studio manager) after a bit he removed the base. I’m not quite sure where the wax has gone but by now it’s gone. When we got into class they were in there cooling down (but still bloody hot). I was using my fine silver scraps, but for various reasons I wanted them to be sterling silver. Dad does not need fine silver cuff links and on the more practical side fine silver is very soft and not the best for something you wear on your wrists. This all meant that I had to mix in some copper.  For that you have to melt it all together and then pickle it to get rid of all the oxidation.Here it’s all ready to melt. When it melts if forms a lovely bit of metal.

this is after its out of the pickle. Then you place the cylinder in the casting drum. The metal is in the front part and the black thing is the cylinder.

Fire is applied! we have to wear dark tinted glasses so we can see the metal heating...

After the machine is finished you take out the flask and let it cool for anywhere between 10-20 minutes, then you submerge it in a bucket of water full of the used investment (you can’t dump the stuff in the sink). Here they are yes they are black, its just the oxidation.

this is after they are out of the pickle and I have sawed one off I now start the long process of clean up. I will keep you all updated... now on to other subjects...

Over all my academic classes are not so much bad as just boring. There is one thing I really like about them both though, I sit to one side in history and a few rows back in ethics and once I get bored of the topic or taking notes I watch people sketch. That sounds a bit creepy but I swear it’s not really. At CCA EVERYONE sketches, because you have to for a class (me) or because sketching is something you do whenever someone hands you any kind of writing utensil. There seems to be three methods for class sketching. One; the unabashed sketcher, these are the people who don’t even try to hide the fact that they are drawing and were planning to draw in the class, they often have large sketch books and several different pencils and pens with the nice erasers. If you questioned these people they will probably tell you that drawing helps them pay attention, I’m not going to refute that but it seems a bit iffy.  Two: the timid doodler. These people are the ones who bring notebooks with lined paper and will really start off taking notes however before long the margins will be filled and the drawing is infringing on the notes and soon there are no more notes. These people would most likely apologize if someone asked them about it, and look up often to see if they have been caught. Three: the most common, I’m going to kind of pretend to be taking notes but not really. (Although we all do this sooo…) they say they are going to take notes in their sketch book, its normally a lot smaller book then the unabashed sketchers have; notes on one page, drawing on the opposite, so they are flipping back and forth. They will look a bit guilty but not really deny anything. So what are the top subjects for theses drawing? Well, of cores it all varies, but manly its manga style people, after that tattoo designs and faces- in classical style.

This is the sketch the girl next to me did in my small ethics lecture (so an hour and a half) this was one of two she seemed pleased to let me take a photo and it gave me an idea for some cool metal hair piece.

I will post again if anything exciting happens but if not I will post when the cuff links are in there final stages of clean up and done (about a week).