Kuriosities

Some pic’s as promised of my little bird. I thought that I had taken pics of my wax in progress, but cannot find them at all now. I spent a long time carving all his little feathers. Oh well. I do have a wax from casting – maybe I’ll take pics tomorrow.

Here is a Robin fresh from being cast. They alway come back white, but this will polish to silver easily. They also come with a big annoying chunky thing called a sprue, which is how the molten silver flows into the mold to make the piece. I have to first saw off the largest part of this, and then file the piece until it is the right shape again, and then sand it. In this photo one bird still has its sprue, the other does not.

After I de-sprued the birdie, I tossed him into my centrifugal magnetic tumbler to rid him of the white and polish him up a bit. I didn’t leave it in there for very long, because I don’t want it to have a high polish, I want a more antiqued look… This is also why I did not hand polish it with tripoli as I usually do with my small run pieces.

I wanted to add a patina to bring up the details, so into the Liver of Sulphur it went, resulting in this bluish black finish…

After the bird was oxidised, I brushed it with a steel brush  to give it a satin finish. It removed the oxidation from the high spots, but left the crevices with the patina. The light was not with me at the time of day I photographed the next two, but you get the idea…

And now it is ready for the finished pieces that it will be a part of! It is fairly tiny, though hard to tell in the photos. It measures 17 mm head to tail.

All jewelry designs on this blog are copyright Kuriosities.com 2008. My jewelry and my writings are  how I make my living, and put food on the table. No stealing of ideas, svp.! I hate to hire lawyers, but I will.