A Great Load Out & New Ouches!

The Guild Fair's break down and load out went very well tonight.  I think there were only about a half-dozen folks still finishing their loading by the time we headed out around 8:30 or so.  That's easily an hour earlier than we've gotten out before.  Lots of good folks helped to make it all happen so well.

I think I managed to get some good photos as I walked the arena level handing out load out passes.  I hoping I'll be able to get some posted in the next day or two.

The new ouches?  Now our feet are sore!

Photos Soon!

Today's the last day of the Guild Fair, so we'll return to our regularly programmed blogging soon.  Photos are coming.  Until then, here are a couple of examples of our latest work . . .

A Birthday Pendant Comission

Life Cast Bronze Fern

Sterling Silver &

"Wet" Mountain Stream Pebble.

Lapis Lazuli

Sterling Silver & 14K Gold.

Sterling Fern & Labradorite

Now in the A.H. Collection.

We'll be getting home later tonight.  Since we're local we're in nor rush to break down.  We like to help make sure that the folks that have to travel tonight can get out as soon as possible.  Once displays have been disassembled, I'll be walking the arena handing out load out passes while Pat packs our display up.  When it's clear enough she'll run the plants and the table we use for the spinner rack home, then come back to the Civic Center and we'll do our final load out.  By the time we're finished the arena should be just about completely empty.

I hope I can get some good photos ~ it's an amazing transformation!

Count Down Fun! 0! WIld Horses Couldn't Drag Me Away . . .

Wild Horses Couldn't Drag Me Away . . .

Our friends Russ and Nan Jacobshon

pulling into the Civic Center's Arena before us.

3 1/2 Hours Later.

Tired & Satisfied. 

The new pendants are all photographed it's time to get back to the buffer.

Wonder how much I can get done in the next eleven or twelve hours ? ! ?

Three Hours Later . . .



Count Down Fun! 0 . . .

Photos to follow later ~ probably in a day or two.  The car's loaded with almost all of our display.  Loading the car is always kind of a Fun process. (You have to remember that I'm a self-trained professional and sometimes enjoy that type of three dimensional puzzle.)  The new step, for our display top, is made.  Our blue silk noir draping is fluffed and rolled and ready to go for the morning.  The plants for our booth are ready.  (Do you think we'd spend four days in the Civic Center without some of our plants with us???).   I cut new foam core spacers for the skirting/draping (and I'm so glad that I remembered to!).  Pat picked up another half-dozen pony clamps when she made her run out this afternoon.  We have clean clothes!

And I am still grinding and buffing.

And will be  .  .  .

If the alarm wasn't set and our Load-In window wasn't from 9 to 10 I'd be at the buffer until the sun came up ~ that'd actually make me feel better!  But I have to be able to function in the morning and then sit back down at the buffer once we're set up for the Fair.

At least I think I've worked out a schedule that will let me get everything I'd like to finished.  Work until 3 or 4 this morning.  Clean up and sleep.  Hope to be back in the studio by 1 tomorrow afternoon (and able to function).  If I leave one 3 hour batch for Thursday afternoon I might be able to get everything else done (the rest of the production finishing, photographing the pendants, making a couple of calls, and whatever else is on the list that isn't in front of me right now) and (hopefully!) be fairly coherent that morning.

We have so many beautiful pieces of jewelry so close to be ready to be unveiled, and I can hear them calling!  So it's back to the buffer.

If you're in Asheville this beautiful weekend please come by and see us!  And Terry, we really wish you and David could be here right now.  (We'd put you to work running the ultrasound!)

Count Down Fun! 1!

4:02 AM now, so I guess it's really Count Down Fun! 0!!!

No pictures tonight I'm afraid.  So you just have to imagine Sweet Sammy purring on my lap rubbing his face against my arms as I try to type.  "Dad?  Where's my cuddle?!?"

I just finished putting tonight's two production flasks into the ultrasound to devest overnight.  It's so late I'll just leave 'em running in a jar of water and pickle them in the morning.  As I've said before, you never know for sure until they come out of the pickle ~ but I do feel pretty good about them.

Why up so late casting???  It's Monday, so I made a fast store run and gassed up the car.  In the office working on the waxes I finished shooting last night by 11.  Ate a quick lunch before Pat left for her afternoon at Jeannie's.  And it took forever to get these last two trees sprued!  Which meant, you guessed it, I didn't get the flasks invested until 4:15 PM.  Which meant I couldn't begin the burnout cycle until 5:15 . . .

Why not just wait and do them in the morning?  There's no way I would be able to get them finished in time.

Why not just give up and move on?  There are lots of reasons.

Maybe because all of the work that went into the waxes up to that point would have been 'wasted' (until later that is)?  Because I'd said I was going to do it?  Because we wouldn't have the selection of work and price points that we want?  Because I'm stubborn?  Take your pick!

Some things, that we feel are important and worth while, came up awhile back and I got a later start on our production work than we had planned.  Basically I'm trying to do about three or four weeks of work in about ten or eleven days.  Most of our larger pendants have been works in progress for a couple of months now.  We have some of our production work, but not nearly enough to get us through the four days of the Guild Fair.

Pat got home earlier than usual tonight!  After she made us a nice dinner and we spent a little time together she got all of or earrings for the spinner rack on their cards and priced.  I'm glad she got to bed at a reasonable time ~ one of us has got to be functional!

Tomorrow, er, later today, I'll gather and load our display in the car first.  Then I'll sit down at the buffer.  Pat has some tricky repairs for Doug's and there are two more pieces she's hoping to find time to finish.  Wednesday morning we'll be at the Civic Center for Load In!  With luck we should have our booth set up and be back around noon ready to finish our work.

We both really love doing the Guild Fairs.  They're Fun.  It's incredibly stimulating to see everyones' amazing work.  It's really great to get to spend even a little bit of time with our friends, and to meet now people.  And frankly, being in the studio so much, it's wonderful to get to actually get peoples reaction to our work first hand.  It's a good feeling.

It's just the getting to the Fair that can be the hard part!

If it isn't finished before the Fair opens at 10 Thursday morning it isn't going to get finished!  We'll have what we'll have.  And it'll be fine!

If I can sustain my normal buffer pace I have, realistically, about 20 hours of grinding and buffing and ultrasounding to go.  Since I work in batches Pat will be oxidizing the pieces that need it as I finish them.  Then we'll do any final assembly, put on ear wires, and the pricing.  Oh, yeah,  I need to remember to photograph the new pendants and the three commissions we're delivering this weekend!  (I know there's something I'm forgetting!!!)

And then there's the regular minutiae of life ~ like laundry!  (My shower Sunday was loverly!)  And taking time to cuddle our loving cats.  So that's the quick rundown.

I'm sitting here past ready to go to bed trying to remember if I brushed my teeth . . .

Count Down Fun! 2! Ouch . . .

Saturday's late night casting really did me in.  As in ouch, and I need more sleep!  Yesterday got to a much slower start than it should have for the amount I still have to do.  This is my view from the bench as I ate breakfast

Wow.  Look at those shapes and textures! 

What movie does this remind you of? 

"Feed me suckers!"

Sedums' in Fall bloom. 

There's a cute new girl in town  .  .  .

Our new neighbor came to visit from two houses away.

Ah, Mom, what's that? 

That's my Mom you litlle furball! 

Hi Handsome. 

He hissed at me!!! 

Don't feel too bad for the cute little girl.  Inky was off protecting the borders and poor Sam was so weirded out by the strange oblivious interloper that he ended up running inside to get away from her!  She tried to go in with him.

Day 3's castings came out well.  Spent the day spruing, investing then burning out two flasks.  As you guessed, my late start meant I poured at 12:30 last night.  Ouch.

They're pickling in the ultrasound right now.

I figure I've got a little more than twenty hours of grinding and buffing to go, before we oxidize and put ear wires on.  Ouch.

Count Down Fun! 3! Part 3 ~ Picture Heavy Sorta Word Light

It was so cool this morning that I couldn't invest until 2 PM.  That meant the flask went into the kiln, for an 8 hour burnout cycle, at 3:15 this afternoon . . .  I poured at 12:30 tonight.  The trees are devesting in a sealed jar of plain water in the ultrasound right now.  I'll switch them into pickle before I go to bed.  So far they look good, we'll know for sure when they come out of the pickle tomorrow.

So here's some more of what we did today . . .  Besides the major pendants that Pat finished, she also worked on our new Seasonal Botanical Earrings!

Jump rings soldered on, textured freshly patinated.

 Detail texturing the ends after patinating.

Pat:  "You know, if we do these the way we want to we're not charging enough."

Tom:  "Yeah, I know."

I wonder what we'll do with this newly cast Bronze Fern . . . ? 

While I was minding the kiln I was shooting waxes for our production earrings.

This is what the wax injector looks like after a couple of days of hard work! 

I talked about making and cutting molds way back here if you're curious.

When I'm doing production work I like to shoot six molds at a time.  That way the first will be cooled enough to "pull" the wax by the time I've shot the last.  I hold the mold between two sheets of thick aluminum and press them against the injectors nozzle.  For this wax, MagnaJect Pink, the wax pot is running a little over 150 F.  With the pressure gauge generally at 3 to 3.5 psi most molds take a count of ten to fill well.  Some molds take a bit longer ~ you learn how your molds shot and adjust accordingly.

Here's how you pull a wax . . .

Every mold has a top and a bottom, lift the top off. 

Use a long thumbnail to cut the sprue free. 

Flex the mold to free the wax and lift it out.

Check for air bubbles and any incomplete details. 

Shot the now empty mold again.

Repeat until you're done!  Make some extras just to be sure.

I'm always working with my master shooting list beside me, so I can keep track of what I'm working on:  how many we'd like to have of what designs, variations and combinations.  (At last count I've come up with 72 different variations of our production Ridgelines earrings already, and we have more shapes still to come!)

Last weekend I talked about how and why I make wax jump rings back here.

Now it's time to use more of them!

For me the key to production work is to be efficient, fast and always do it right.

Working on the same step of multiple pieces helps.

4 pairs of small oval Ridgelines ready to go

The jump ring is glued in place with the cut at the bottom,

checked for centering and balance

from both sides and from above. 

I know it looks a little cockeyed.  It isn't, the sprue isn't centered.

Repeat until done.

When the jump rings are glued it's time to lute them ~ to seal them in place with wax.

I use my Dual Therm wax pen's finest tip to apply low melting point red sprue wax to both sides of the jump ring, making sure to get inside the lower area to ensure where the coil was originally cut is completely closed. 

Repeat until done.

Tonight I stopped at 7, turned the kiln to High and made a quick and easy dinner.  It took a little longer than I had expected, but it was good.  We spent a little time relaxing together.  Then I got back to work.  I want to get two more trees of waxes sprued for tomorrow!

But as soon as I sat down in the office I got mugged by Inky!!!

"Daaad.  You haven't really cuddled me allll day . . ."

"Are we reaally going to work, right nooow???"

"I didn't think so!"

"Oh that's good."

"Watdaya mean enough?!"

"Oh, oh, oh.  Right there, right there!"

After we both had a good cuddle love session I was able to sprue up the first tree of waxes for tomorrow.  Someday some very lucky person is going to fall in love with a pair of our Ridgelines earrings and they'll never know that Inky helped make them!

By the time I got the second batch glued and ready to lute it was time to turn all of my attention to the kiln and weigh out my metal (Flask #1 82 g., Flask #2 92 g.) and get ready to cast.

I have one tree ready for tomorrow.  At this point the other waxes won't take me too long to sprue up.  I could have kept going for a little while, but posting this has been a nice way to wind down and end the evening.

Our chains are supposed to be in from Italy Monday.  As long as they're here by Wednesday we'll be very happy!

And I just know there's something I've forgotten that I really should remember to write down.  I wonder what  .  .  . ?

Oh.

I need to take a shower!  And I should do some laundry when I have a chance . . .

Count Down Fun! 3! Part 2 I got mugged. . .

Inky really needed a cuddle, right now thank you very much.

I'm still spruing work for tomorrow, but my lower back is compressed and beginning to ache.  So it's time for a short break and a stretch.  Good photos from today to follow, probably in the morning.

Sometime the silliest things can go through your mind when you're working.  So here's an internal dialogue that amused me . . .

"What's that smell?"
Oh, I almost burned the air compressor up . . .

"What's that smell?"
Oh, you know, my casting glove got a little hot when I turned the flasks.

"What's that smell?"
Oh, that's just the hair I signed off my hand.

"What's that smell?"
What smell?  Oh, that one???
Um; I really need a shower . . .

Hey, I didn't say it was funny!  But it sure made me smile!

Count Down Fun! 3! Part 1

Pat's Latest Favorite!

Sterling Silver Christmas Fern on a Spectacular Labradorite,

hot off the bench!

More to come later   .   .   .



Count Down Fun! 4!

So I woke up in my office chair at 3 or so this morning and stumbled off to bed.  We ended up getting a pretty good early start to the day.  This time of the year the light is just incredible, and mornings and late afternoons can be spectacular.

I started by de-spruing the ferns I cast last night.  The three Christmas Ferns are toast, but the Bracken and the Japanese Painted Ferns are hot!  Despite our joking about how long they would take to de-sprue it went surprisingly fast.  Then a coarse grind and a fine grind and now they're in Pat's to do que.

One leaf is incomplete.  Fortunately I waxed it up a much longer frond than we need!

When I ground the back clean the heat caused this color to develop.

Interesting possibilities for a Fall piece . . .

This is going to be a spectacular pendant once we're finished!

Here's an idea of how different the finished pendant will look from the initial casting:

we made this Bracken Ridgelines Pendant early this Spring.

I got all of the Seasonal Botanicals  ground and ready for Pat, while she finished these two gorgeous Seasonal Botanical Pendants!

Sterling Silver Sedum telephium 'Autumn Joy' and Labradorite.

 

I just blanked on what succulent this is!  Um

Sterling Silver Succulent on Labradorite.

(Hmmm.  Maybe I am that tired!  I think I'm glad I didn't try to invest tonight.)

Then it was back to wax work!  I managed to get all of the Petite Ridgelines Pendants that we'll have at the Guild Fair treed and ready to invest.  Got a flask of our larger Ridgelines earrings treed and ready to invest.  All weighed, notes made and ready for the morning.

Here's a sneak peak at some new earrings for our spinner rack for the Fair.

Affordable Reticulated Bronze Earrings!



While I was finishing up Pat made her wonderful enchiladas for our dinner tonight.  The smell was driving me crazy.  They tasted even better than they smelled!  YUM.

Last week someone asked me if we ate out all of the time when we are working like this; hard and straight through.  No, we aren't eating out now.  I enjoy cooking, Pat enjoys it when she doesn't get stuck with it all of the time.  It works pretty well for us.  Stopping and taking an hour or so to cook a good meal is Fun for me.  Besides the better we eat the better we work.  

After dinner and a little break I went back to work and shot some waxes for tomorrow.  After about forty minutes I finally realized that I was smelling the air compressor that powers the wax pot.  I had left the dust cover on and it had gotten so hot that I couldn't touch it!  Time to stop.

Oh.  I just remembered that we haven't mailed our Fair postcards out . . .

Count Down Fun! 5! Part 2, "You know . . ."

[I just discovered that this was saved as a draft last night when I fell asleep in my office chair!  So here's yesterday's second post ~ please just ignore any confusing tense usages and pretend that you're reading it yesterday  .  .  . ]

You know, there's a reason that casting is as much an art form as it is a science . . .

Pat test wearing our newest

Seasonal Botanicals in Sterling Silver !!!

This is another case of taking a break outside and really looking at the wonderful world around us.  I saw this amazing shape and knew that I just had to see what they would look like, and feel like, what they would be as a piece of jewelry.  How could anyone possibly improve on this form, this shape, these proportions???  You can't.

This is one of the first pairs of earrings that I had to try to cast (I think it was) last week (?) because of this inspiration.  (The days are beginning to blend together a little!)  And yes, if you saw my last post, these are actually seed pods from our Ipomoea guamoclit, or Hummingbird Vine.  These beautiful earrings began life as this beautiful flower:

Hummingbird Vine, also known as Star Glory or Cyprus Vine,

Ipomoea guamoclit.

Talk about a stretch your limits challenge!  The first test casting went well and I learned a number of things.  There was no way I could stop with just a couple.  So I had to make more!  But the clock is steadily ticking away and I just don't have time for experimenting ~ if something doesn't work the time and energy and effort is gone.  (But not wasted!  Sometime we have to learn certain lessons more than once . . .)

It was disappointing to take Tuesday night's castings out of the ultrasound and think I'd found shrinkage porosity last night.  I used a miniature cut off disc to desprue the castings today.  And I feel alot better.  Only a couple actually suffered from shrinkage porosity!  (Generally caused by too small a sprue supplying too little metal to too large a mass.  Which was exactly what happened here.)  The rest are perfect and we'll have them at the Guild Fair!  (Providing we find the time to get them all finished!)  I got them all de-sprued and rough ground for Pat today.  She finished up the forged rings so I've got them waiting in the que for grinding and buffing and final polishing.

Between our long dry spell and the cold nights we're having now these might just be the only Hummingbird Vine castings I can make this year.

Our chains haven't arrived from Italy yet, so I called today.  They should be here today or tomorrow.  As long as we have them by next Wednesday we'll be happy.

While I was minding the kiln today Pat got lots more finished up than I did.  Thank goodness!  (Why, oh why, do I still think I can get a dozen other things done when I'm casting???)

Ferns, waxed and ready for spruing*.

So I made dinner a little later than I probably should have tonight.  Pat offered to, but I was already so hungry-wired that I just wasn't being effective so it was better for me to stop working and get into the kitchen.  I made Pat flop on the couch with a good book.

So we ate and then I cast the Ferns at 7:27 tonight.  It was 56 degrees out, though because the kiln and Electro-Melt were running it was 65 in my casting area.  I charged the Electro-Melt with 59 grams (just a smidge under 2 ounces) of Everdur Silicon Bronze once it was preheated to 1850 degrees Fahrenheit.  The kiln and flask were at 950 degrees F.  Normally I'd cast Silicon Bronze with the flask at 900, but it was a cool evening and the ferns are delicate finely detailed pieces.  (Remember that:  "Delicate finely detailed pieces" . . .)

Here's tonight's 1 minute 30 second video of the pour.  If you want to skip ahead to see the four seconds it takes to pour 2 ounces of molten metal, the Fun Part starts at 54 seconds.  This is the make or break point of more than two very full very long days of work and another day spent burning out the flask . . .



Ten minutes later, because it was so cool, the button wasn't glowing and it was time to quench.  And I immediately knew I had problems.  Despite the extremely excessive spruing three of the five ferns completely failed to cast . . .

Gut-dropping, stomped flat, sick to the stomach about sums up how I felt when I first held the castings in my hand.  What ???  Sure, we all know ferns are too thin and too light to cast.  But I've done 'em before and . . .

When I first started casting [lets be polite and just say it was a couple of decades ago, okay?] everything that could go wrong did.  There are so many things that have to be just right to making a casting work, or not, that sometimes I couldn't figure out what had happened!  I wish I could find it now but, I wrote out a list of every single step involved and what might go wrong if you made a mistake at any step and what the affects would be on the casting.  For some reason the number 311 still jumps into my mind all these years later.  (It might've been 315.)

So by my, ancient, calculations from the wax stage to the final quench there are more than 300 hundred ways that you can completely mess up a casting . . .

But more importantly, just what the heck went wrong this time?!?  And how the heck have I messed up two castings in a row???  Am I really that tired???

The metal temp was at 1950 when I poured.  Silicon Bronze is, like DeOxidized Sterling Silver, kind of funny stuff to melt.  There's the melting point of the metal and then there's the liquidous point ~ and sometimes there's another altogether different temperature for the pouring point.  When Silicon Bronze first melts it looks like an antique mirror with a crackly crazzed surface; raise the temperature another 20 or 25 degrees and that affect disappears as the silicon is activated and you're good to pour.

Okay.  It looked good or I wouldn't've poured when I did.  But my first suspicion was the metal's temperature and even though I tried to allow for the ambient temperature that's where I looked first . . . 

Oh.

Here's what I forgot to allow for!!!  Yep, I poured at the correct temperature ~ for a dense heavy casting.  For light delicate ferns I should have poured when the Bronze was another 50 to 100 degrees higher!!!

There's nothing to do but make a note in my casting log and hope that I'll always remember to double-check in the future.  Then you turn the music on and smile and dance.

It's such a Beautiful World and there is always more to remember and to learn. 

So if that was the problem why did I say casting is as much an Art as it is a Science???

Because if I had listened to, and really heard, my own inner voice saying, "Um, it's not hot enough yet . . ." regardless of what the pyrometer said, I think they would have all turned out perfectly.

I didn't listen.  Now all I can do is dance and smile and laugh with the music.

If today is suddenly Friday it must be time for lists, or maybe it's time for bed   .   .   .

Sam & Ink again, late this July, just because.

*Gee, aother word that I seem to automatically misspell!  Sprueing should be spruing.  Though ti, er, it makes me feel better to see how many people have googled sprueing and landed on our blog!

Count Down ~ For Terry!

Inky sez:

Feel better Terry!

Sammy sez:

You better listen to him or I'll call Niles!

Mom & Dad Wanna Send You Some Flowers

Dad, we said Flowers!

Tha Boyz are worried about you too Dearest Sister!



Count Down Fun! 5! Part 1

Here's a quick sneak peak at one of our new Fern Pendants!

Sterling Silver and Bronze.

The stream pebble is set in a Sterling step bezel, and then coated* so it is "wet".

The Christmas Fern is cast in Everdur, my favorite of all metals, a Silicon Bronze alloy used for sculptural work and jewelry.  It's a lovely metal!

Keep an eye on this Hummingbird Vine! 

Ipomoea guamoclit

Also known as Cyprus Vine or Star Glory.

I'm going to try an experiment with today's Count Down!  If I have a chance I'll post updates as the day progresses, instead of trying to catch up tomorrow.  Lets see how it goes . . .

*We get the "wet" look on the pebble by using the nastiest cheapest clear fingernail polish from Wally's World!  We also use it to coat the Silicon Bronze so that it won't oxidize over the years.  We have some Silicon Bronze Earrings that we made 20-some years ago that where treated this way after being heat coloured.  They still look as good as they did when we made them.  So we know this coating is good for at least 20 years!

Oh, the Hummingbird Vine bloom?  You'll just have to wait and see!

The Fern flask is going into the preheated kiln now.  If all goes well I should be casting around 8 or 9 tonight.  A little later that I would normally prefer, but not too late.