Incredible day. I found out that one of my students has been awarded the highest honor than any other piece of Jewelry submitted by a high school in the state of Utah! I commissioned the same student to design me a University of Texas class ring which I got to cast today.
My modern kiln is on the fritz so I had to cast using the ancient kiln that hasn't been used in two years. This kiln is small, and requires the teacher to ramp up the temperatures manually, which means I can't program it when I leave school, and be ready to cast in the morning.
Aside from all that, I had to take an ounce of 24 carat gold, and mix it with an ounce of mixed copper, silver, and assorted 12 carat gold broken jewelry pieces, including one of my mothers old crowns.
I was worried about the casting, since 1 and 10 casting molds blow up or fail in some way. I was imagining $1200 worth of gold getting splattered around my casting studio!!! (Yikes)!
After casting the first mold, I placed mine in the centrefuge and let her rip. The ring came out a bit dirty, with some bubbles; But the overall casting went quite well! I finished up staying 2 1/2 hours after school, and most of the casting molds came out excellent.
From 5:00 PM till 9:00 PM, I filed and refined this ring, and it's starting to look incredible.
Freddy is behaving much better today, he seems to have lost his "Alpha Male" problem, which caused him to be a pain in the ass yesterday. I hope to take him camping tomorrow night, if I can find a place that is open.
My modern kiln is on the fritz so I had to cast using the ancient kiln that hasn't been used in two years. This kiln is small, and requires the teacher to ramp up the temperatures manually, which means I can't program it when I leave school, and be ready to cast in the morning.
Aside from all that, I had to take an ounce of 24 carat gold, and mix it with an ounce of mixed copper, silver, and assorted 12 carat gold broken jewelry pieces, including one of my mothers old crowns.
I was worried about the casting, since 1 and 10 casting molds blow up or fail in some way. I was imagining $1200 worth of gold getting splattered around my casting studio!!! (Yikes)!
After casting the first mold, I placed mine in the centrefuge and let her rip. The ring came out a bit dirty, with some bubbles; But the overall casting went quite well! I finished up staying 2 1/2 hours after school, and most of the casting molds came out excellent.
From 5:00 PM till 9:00 PM, I filed and refined this ring, and it's starting to look incredible.
Freddy is behaving much better today, he seems to have lost his "Alpha Male" problem, which caused him to be a pain in the ass yesterday. I hope to take him camping tomorrow night, if I can find a place that is open.
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