What does THIS:
Have to do with THESE:
And THIS ?
That's what the experiment is all about.
The working hypothesis is: I can take some of the many matching doorknobs that grace the many doors in my house, press them into ceramic clay to make disk molds, which I will incise with the above design (using plain lines, not the many-sized circles as I'm not that skilled), and use the ingot buttons in their molten form to create medallions using said molds.
Being as it's an experiment which is as yet merely a thought in my notoriously strange mind, don't be holding your breath or anything waiting for spectacular results.
You know me.
I'm not into fancy schmancy and am not going to try to create intricate little patterns and designs - plain and simple is plenty enough challenge for this woman.
# Time lapse ... digging through studio and store room to find things I need ... which I duly found, thank goodness.
You know what?
I just had another thought.
Those medallions will be a perfect size for a nice big necklace dangle ... so I've got to remember to carve little ring things at their tops ... which has nothing in this world to do with the thought that just blazoned across my mind but I don't want to forget to DO it, so put this little reminder to myself in here for safe-keeping so to speak.
No, my thought was that these things will also be a perfect size for the brooches I need for my chitons and cloaks and plaids and such.
Not that I'm going to use these medallions for any such thing, mind you.
Howsomever, there's such a thing as carving directly into the clay while it's still damp ... and I can design the penannulars I want (simple, very simple, as this is still me we're talking about here) and just carve the rings with the divide smack into the clay. The pin too, for that matter, and then figure out how to bend the wide end of it around the ring - although this is aluminum alloy we're using so it ought to retain some of it's workability, right?
When it comes to the ring things, the circles on the doorknobs are exactly the size I want - so I can just push them far enough into the clay to get the impression I need, a basic pattern, and then deepen the areas I want. Holy Mother I'm going to have to be bloody careful pouring, aren't I? Or I'll have scads of filing and such to do, which I wouldn't find very fun I betcha. So it's careful I'll be.
How hard can this be? People have been making these things for thousands and thousands of years. And if the meaning of the name Gowan is even close, there were some smiths among my ancestors. Not that I'm exactly 'smithing' anything, but working with metal is working with metal, right? Right. Melting it and making it into things I need. Maybe some of that DNA is kicking in, you never know. My sister works in a whole different way with metals to make fancy schmancy jewelry stuff ... not me, though. I'm just looking for plain and simple utility here.
Hmmm ... I wonder ... what if, to make the brooch circles, I just lay some of my thick aluminum wire into them, the stuff I use for the bracelets and spirals and such? Then I wouldn't have to worry about trying to pour into those narrow grooves ... the wire would melt as the molds heat while the rest of the aluminum is becoming molten ... and those molds can just sit right there in the kiln to cool while I pour the other stuff. Because, you know darned well that if I tried to take them out right away I'd spill molten aluminum all over the place and the brooches would surely be ruined, along with a lot of other stuff that I don't really want to ruin either.
And what the heck. I just had another thought as I was hoping the aluminum would retain enough flexibility for me to wrap the pin ends around the brooch circles. It dawned on me that the stuff is likely to still be too flexible. Dang. I might need some antimony after all. To mix with the aluminum as it melts, you know, to toughen it up some.
Well then.
Let the experimenting begin, huh?
I think I'll just try dropping them into a bucket of cold water first. If they're still too soft to serve their purpose, that will be the time to think about other options.
Copper. Copper just flew into my head.
Ach.
Geez.
Bronze? A sort of bronze? What the heck.
Not tonight.
Please don't make me figure this out tonight.
*sigh*
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