PB Cohen Creations

Casting went reasonably well on Thursday. Be sure to click on this one to embiggen, because then you'll see all the things that went wrong. But first, you'll probably notice that this collection of cast items looks pretty awful.

The white stuff is the bits of investment (a jeweler's version of Plaster of Paris) that I haven't cleaned off yet. The black stuff — believe it or not — is sterling silver. A nice soak in a warm acid bath should take care of most of both of those issues, and a good scrub will take care of the rest.

Additional problems: 1) the button (base of the casting) is bigger than it needs to be, which is a waste of silver (don't worry, I'll recycle that). 2) I lost parts of — and in one case all of — the seed pods that were sticking out of the now mostly empty sprues. 3) There are tiny little air bubbles (um, investment bubbles?) everywhere, which of course turned into bubbles of silver. Including one on the bird's beak, of all places! I'm sure my instructor will have a few other ideas about things that I could do better next time, as well.

But overall, considering the enormous lump of investment I was pretty sure had fallen into the flask, crushing everything on its way to the bottom, I think it went pretty well. I have a discernible bird, and a distinguishable ring. Countless hours went into those waxes, so the fact that they're both intact is pretty darned good. Talk to me after I've filed away all those bubbles and I may have a different opinion, but until then, I'm pleased.

Only two more opportunities to cast during this class, so I expect I'll be busy carving for the next two weeks. But later, I'll have pics of these things finished, plus all the other things I've managed to cast.