So, this last summer I was asked by the then-new Princess to make her some.... No, that's wrong. See, she'd already figured out that I can go a little bit mad with crafting at not much provocation. So instead of giving me an assignment or request, she delineated a space about the size of a nickel and said to me, "sea goats".
Okay, capricorns. Part of her heraldry and a symbol of their reign. I chewed on ideas for the next 8ish hours of driving (I took the long way back from Coronet) and looked for some medieval examples once I got back to internet. Turns out they're not much different than modern depictions, but I did see some waves in a pilgrim badge that aren't the typical "w"s.
So I incorporated them into my first design. Carved in the round, if you turn it over there's a finny rear end. The second is a more standard pendant with a side profile carved in bas relief. I was going to give a choice as to which got made but ended up with "both!".
The next step is called spruing, in which I attach a piece of wax to an inconspicuous spot, or at least a less-conspicuous one. The other end I attached to the base of some shot glass sized solo cups. This was done a month ago, check out the precursor to my awesome new desk!
It was at this point I hit a bit of a snag. I'd picked up some silicone mold making compound that promises resistance to high heat, but it needed to be mixed at a 100:3 ratio, and then degassed. Neither of those made the project impossible, but it did require some stuff I didn't have in the craft closet.
One Food Saver, some syringes and a tiny drug dealer scale later, I was ready to go!
The tiny cups hold about 80g of fluid each, but if there's degassing involved you DO NOT want to fill the cup to the brim. I mixed up two batches of 66g:2g, poured it in my wax cups and started running the vacuum. A Food Saver doesn't actually pull quiiiite enough vacuum to meet the recommendations, but I ran it a couple times and am hoping for the best.
It looks like carbonated ketchup! I'm heartened by how many bubbles I got and am reminding myself that this will be pewter and chisels can clean up the odd casting flaw. It ended up settling at that first upper line, so I mixed up another 33:1 batch to top off both of my molds.
Cure time is 24 hours. Tomorrow or Wednesday I'll see what happens when I peel the rubber out of the cup and attempt to surgically extract the waxes. Ideally, I'll get them out in mostly one piece and not have to pick wax fragments out of everything. Then it'll be time to heat pewter and pour!
Okay, capricorns. Part of her heraldry and a symbol of their reign. I chewed on ideas for the next 8ish hours of driving (I took the long way back from Coronet) and looked for some medieval examples once I got back to internet. Turns out they're not much different than modern depictions, but I did see some waves in a pilgrim badge that aren't the typical "w"s.
So I incorporated them into my first design. Carved in the round, if you turn it over there's a finny rear end. The second is a more standard pendant with a side profile carved in bas relief. I was going to give a choice as to which got made but ended up with "both!".
The next step is called spruing, in which I attach a piece of wax to an inconspicuous spot, or at least a less-conspicuous one. The other end I attached to the base of some shot glass sized solo cups. This was done a month ago, check out the precursor to my awesome new desk!
It was at this point I hit a bit of a snag. I'd picked up some silicone mold making compound that promises resistance to high heat, but it needed to be mixed at a 100:3 ratio, and then degassed. Neither of those made the project impossible, but it did require some stuff I didn't have in the craft closet.
One Food Saver, some syringes and a tiny drug dealer scale later, I was ready to go!
The tiny cups hold about 80g of fluid each, but if there's degassing involved you DO NOT want to fill the cup to the brim. I mixed up two batches of 66g:2g, poured it in my wax cups and started running the vacuum. A Food Saver doesn't actually pull quiiiite enough vacuum to meet the recommendations, but I ran it a couple times and am hoping for the best.
It looks like carbonated ketchup! I'm heartened by how many bubbles I got and am reminding myself that this will be pewter and chisels can clean up the odd casting flaw. It ended up settling at that first upper line, so I mixed up another 33:1 batch to top off both of my molds.
Cure time is 24 hours. Tomorrow or Wednesday I'll see what happens when I peel the rubber out of the cup and attempt to surgically extract the waxes. Ideally, I'll get them out in mostly one piece and not have to pick wax fragments out of everything. Then it'll be time to heat pewter and pour!
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