Metals Studio - February 7th

Mom and I went to the VPA on the 7^th of February to work on miscellaneous things. I was going to work on enameling the geckos that mom sawed, filed and sanded for me.

Mom worked on cutting out circles to make more V-J-J necklaces and bracelets. She cut out quite a few small, medium, and large circles; she then started working on filing and sanding them down. After she got done, or should I say when her hands wore out, she had green hands. Mom threatened me if they stayed green for her interview she would hurt me!

I heated up the kilns; of course, one kiln was already hot because the students forgot to turn it off. I am afraid to consider how long that kiln was on, because there are no classes on Friday.

I was going to try a new way to enamel the geckos. After I enamel one side, I have to flip the piece over to enamel the other side. I have to try and place the piece on the trivets so that the enamel won’t melt to the trivet or melt and form a divot in the piece, which you then have to file down with a special tool. The file puts scratches in the enamel, which you then have to try and get out. It is just one big vicious cycle. So what I decided to do was put paint kiln wash on the tray and place the geckos on the tray. Let’s just say that it didn’t go as planned, and I now have to fix the mistakes to six geckos. UGH!!!

While I was enameling, I was also helping my friend Shannon with soldering. Shannon can solder, but she does not like the torches, so I offered to solder for her. I am usually pretty good at soldering, but that day I couldn’t get any of the solder to melt. I was trying to solder a large copper tube to a flat piece of solder. The first time I soldered the tube, it didn’t melt. The second time I had Shannon get another torch and had her move the torch up and down while I focused on the area around where we wanted to solder and the solder. The solder still would not melt, so I got out the big torch because I was not fooling around anymore. The solder finally melted!

The other object Shannon needed soldered was a smaller tube sitting on a curved piece of copper. I had to use a “third-hand” to hold the tube while I was soldering. Again I couldn’t get the solder to melt, so I tried to use “Easy” solder instead. It still would not melt. So Shannon tried to help me again with adding another torch. Finally I got out the big torch because I wasn’t fooling around anymore with this either. And yes, the solder did finally melt.

Bring on the big torch!!!!