peteyfrogboy

As promised, more wax casting experiments.

( Details and Pictures )

I was approached some time ago by a friend of mine who wanted a medal cast in the 15th century Italian style. The medals I've done before have been something of a hodge-podge of styles, designed in the 15th century medallic style, at the 16th century medal size, cast in pewter like pilgrim badges. For this project I wanted to get as close as possible to the large bronze medals of Pisanello and his contemporaries.

( Details and Pictures )

I've been wrestling with cooling issues on a casting project and it's still giving me fits. I just hope I haven't screwed the mold up already with my crazy venting attempts.

Packing for the event this weekend has yet to begin. I have only vague ideas of what I'll be wearing. This is going to be the boy child's first event, so I'll need to keep my daytime wardrobe appropriate for baby wrangling and potential messiness.

Last night I knocked together a linen apron for the girl's new dress. The ties are the little experimental bits of tubular tablet weaving I've had lying around for a while. I folded and ironed the apron, then stuck it in my book-press-cum-linen-press overnight. I don't know that it really got the creases any crisper, but it was worth a shot.

1. I've finished the 400 site tokens for RUM. I just need to get them packed up and handed off to someone who's actually going to the event. I don't think I want to do another project like this for a while, but I'm a sucker so I may end up doing it anyway.

2. I took the girl down to the neighborhood pool today, and she finally got off the steps and at least walked around in the shallow end without hanging onto the wall. One step at a time. :) I've never been much of a swimmer myself, and never learned to swim properly. I tried swimming across the pool, doing what I hoped approximated some sort of actual stroke, and made a conscious effort to actually extend my arms and legs rather than just sort of dog paddling around. Considering the fact that my arms were tired and I was out of breath after a couple of laps, I must have been doing something right. This may be something to pursue more later.

3. The folks are coming down for Father's Day tomorrow, and I decided that it was going to be wonton day. Fried, steamed, soup, all kinds of wontonny goodness. I had some char siu (Chinese roast pork) in the freezer from a while back, which I thawed and chopped for the filling. I added some diced lap xiang (sweet Chinese sausage), water chestnuts, green onion, oyster sauce, chicken stock, and corn starch. Hopefully it'll be tasty.

I still need to put together a proper light box for photographing these things, but here is the new "art swan" trinket.

I don't know why I bother adding the "sca" tag to these. I don't really post about anything else. :)

( Recent Events )

Things I learned about casting this morning:

1) A bigger piece of wood will not warp when used as a mold back.
2) Two hot-swappable oven mitts are a good thing for long runs.
3) More heat in the melt pot solves a lot of problems.
4) Wider vents are better (narrow where they connect to the mold cavity, but widening quickly)

I've got a few projects that I need to get around to, and a few that I'm fiddling with (like the pin I cast to hang miniature portraits from), but nothing really new and exciting. Any suggestions from the peanut gallery?

A lot of men's belts in 16th century portraits are quite narrow, with a clasp at the front and a buckle off to one side. ( Research )

( Modeling )

( Casting )

( Pictures )

Recent projects:

• Various casting experiments. I started carving molds out of soapstone, which was much easier than I thought it would be.
• Peach doublet and blue/gold brocade giornea [picture 2]
• Red giornea
• Blue doublet [picture 2][picture 3]