Cleaned and Polished Casting

Finishing the Cast Band

This slide show illustrates the process for finishing the bronze cuttlebone casting. You can follow the link to Flikr to read the captions explaining each step.

Advanced Metals Final Project

A PDF of Project 5, which was distributed and discussed in class on Thursday is available here.

Alternate Project for Beginning Metals

This is a link to your project file:

Evolution

please leave a message in the comments, if this link does not work for you. It is a PDF so you will have to have Adobe Reader. Feel free to discuss the assignment amongst yourselves (nicely) via the comments section.

Eye Candy

http://www.catherinechandler.com/

Interesting work and excellent photography. Check it out.

Making one mold out of large cuttlebone

Photos of the process. You can go to Flickr to read the descriptions of each step.

A thought on cuttlebone

I was thinking about the whole cutting cuttlebone issue last night. I know some of you were struggling with getting an even cut. It is not an easy thing to accomplish. I haven't tried this approach yet but I see no reason that it shouldn't work:

1. Cut a large cuttlebone (like the ones distributed in class) in half and trim the ends as before.
2. Split the cuttlebone to make a mold and do the same with the second half.
3. Use the resulting thick pieces of the two splits to make your mold. This way, you don't have to worry about splitting the mold evenly (as was so troublesome during class); you just use the thickest cuts from both pieces.
4. Sand the faces of the two splits to fit together flush.
5. Carve your mold into the cuttlebone but be sure to leave 1/8" surrounding the cavity on the face of the smaller piece.

We will spend a bit of time in class refining the molds that you are working on. Be sure and get a good start and email me if you have any questions.