Posted in environment, processes on Jul 7th, 2011
An overview on recycled metal providers (see links below) and the reasons behind them can be found at: The Responsible Jewelry Council http://www.responsiblejewellery.com Christine Dein’s “Green Jewelry News” email newsletter http://www.christinedhein.com/about.html Ethical Metalsmiths http://www.ethicalmetalsmiths.org No Dirty Gold http://www.nodirtygold.org/ Earth Justice http://earthjustice.org Hoover & Strong http://www.hooverandstrong.com/blog/archives/117/ National Geographic Magazine The Real Price of Gold http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2009/01/gold/larmer-text more links about the real [...]
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The 2011 summer edition of San Francisco’s Metal Arts Guild newsletter will be showcasing Sherry Cordova as an artist member. Since the newsletter is printed in black and white, we thought you might like to see some color pictures of the inspirations and work described in the article. On a SCUBA diving trip to the Sea [...]
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Posted in processes, Tools on Aug 29th, 2010
Pat Accorinti came over to spend the afternoon making silhouette dies. She created a shield shape and cut it out of brass and masonite. While she filed the edges of the silhouette smooth, I annealed some 24 ga copper sheet. We placed the copper in the press with the stiffest urethane, per the guidance of [...]
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Posted in processes on Aug 3rd, 2010
The scrap metal yard was a great place to find 16 gauge brass sheet for the top of a silhouette mold. And, they cut it into squares for us with their massive digitally controlled brake. The lumber store cut the tempered masonite into squares for us. Now it’s up to us to cut negative space [...]
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Posted in Out and About, processes on Jul 2nd, 2010
I had some oxygen free copper and fine silver parts that a friend’s local company deemed scrap. While I waited for clear nail polish (a masking method) to dry on my niobium bracelets, I decided to electrolytically anodize the oxygen free copper and silver parts. I kept part of the fine silver piece out of [...]
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Posted in Out and About, processes on May 31st, 2010
Turquoise prospector and metalsmith Dayton Simmons was in the SF Bay Area recently and gave a presentation about turquoise to the Metal Arts Guild. Thanks to him, I now know that the name comes from a long ago mistake in thinking the stones arriving in Europe were from Turkey, and that most turquoise comes from [...]
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Posted in Out and About, processes on Mar 15th, 2010
Picture phone shot taken at a riveting demo by Lynne Todaro of Mission College for the Metal Arts Association of Silicon Valley. Lynne did a great job showing how to rivet, and reminding those of us who’ve done it in the past that annealing the metal to be riveted is key to success.
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Posted in processes on Mar 11th, 2010
Recently all senior instructors for Art Clay World were asked to create 4 pieces showing their craftperson skills with Mitsubishi’s silver clay. The curriculum had changed since my certification as a senior instructor almost 2 years ago, and 4 new projects now replace some previous projects in the curriculum. Those 4 projects were thus a [...]
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Posted in processes on Mar 9th, 2010
When Pat Accorinti floated the idea of creating an alloy with metal clay as a supplement to our demonstration with Mitsubishi’s quick fire copper clay, Kathleen Gordon and I were on board immediately. Pat had read Hadar Jacobson’s blog post about creating an alloy of copper and silver by combining PMC+ with her formulation of [...]
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Posted in processes on Mar 7th, 2010
Another way to create an anodized surface color on titanium is with a kiln Back to heat in a minute…. Last month, my friend and I were looking forward to some serious electrolytic anodization of titanium. We had found her husband’s linear voltage power supply the previous day and had all the necessary supplies gathered [...]
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