shanmonster | Casting Spell

I spent the evening finishing up a basket for my textiles class. It was a very pleasant change from the sweat and frustration of metals. My basket is blue and has little bits of metallic thread in it. I like it, even if f00 thinks it's a misshapen lump.

The metals experience continues as usual. The work is piling up. Although I mostly finished one bezel (poorly), I didn't get the other two stones set. Now, for next Tuesday, I need to have these all completed, plus three more set stones: ovals, this time. I think I like cutting stones a whole helluva lot more than setting them. Maybe I'm actually a lapidarist at heart.

I also really liked doing my cuttle bone casting. It's an ancient casting technique, but I hate to think what was going through the first person's mind who decided to pour molten metal onto a squid! A cuttle bone (just like the kind you'd give to a parakeet) has its ends cut off, and then it's sliced down the middle. You carve a funnel along the top edge, with a nice-sized trough leading to whatever design you feel like carving. Then you wire the halves back together again, and pour molten metal into the funnel.

The result is a horrific stench, followed by a beautifully textured piece.

I've only had the opportunity to cast one piece, and I chose to make a silver pendant in the shape of a flint arrowhead. I think it looks pretty swank, and I hope to make lots more things this way. f00 has already requested an ankh.

I also want to do some pine needle casting. For this technique, you bundle up a nice-sized bunch of dried pine needles nice and tight. You hold 'em together with wire. You set the bundle down upright, and pour molten metal onto it.

The result looks like a bunch of spires and castles. It's really cool, and the smoke is much better-smelling than burnt squid bone. Eugh.

I think the reason there are more forest fires than ocean fires is because the great deity took pity on us and gave us the less stinky of two evils.

Insert your own favourite segue here.

Bear molesters suck (but are pretty ballsy, even if they're bound to become Darwin Award winners).

And now, for something interesting forwarded from Benoit:

Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at an Elingsh uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht frist and lsat ltteer is at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae we do not raed ervey lteter by it slef but the wrod as a wlohe. size=5> Initsereg!

More information on this, here (thanks, f00).