right guys--so what have i managed to bugger up this week i hear you ask!
well, to start at the start i suppose. i melted my lovely leaf. and also my lego earrings. the hated kiln was on too hot--i really don't understand--either i just have the most disobedient kiln--or there's something very wrong with what i'm doing!
the emerald ring is going very well, i got some kiln safe ring cores through the other day--so i tried to put the ring over one to fire--ring too small! (oops) three hours of sanding and refining later, and it was perfect! i even managed to fire it without doing something heinous to it, the stone still fits, and it looks lovely!! the only thing i did was accidently break one of the little leaves off-but it was a clean break, and it looked quite nice assymetretrical, so i think i'll just sand the join and leave it. all i have to do now is tidy up the base of the setting so that it looks a bit less scruffy, and hand it over!!
also today i started on a solid copper choker (incidentally to hang my incinerated leaf on) which went ok, it's just going to take some fiddling to get it just right. but i think it will be amazing when i finish (without melting) both leaf and choker.
ooooh-i nearly forgot! one of my disastrous copper rings caught my eye earlier, so i decided to see what i could to rescue it, it had this lovely bubbled texture where it'd gone wrong. so, what i did, was fill the inside of the band with thick paste clay from an old syringe i had hanging around, smoothed it, tried to push it into all the holes, and level the edges. i then torch-fired the silver, which was ok, but everything was stilll a bit flakey, so ifiled it all down so that it was a bit more even, then did the same again-but kiln-fired it this time, and i've not checked it out yet, but i can't wait to see whether i've just about made it passable-or have just completely wrecked it, and wasted a load of metal! on that note, idrilled a hole in the other copper ring, to see if i could see any raw clay--but it seemed solid all the way through--i just don't get what i've done wrong, if you get it wet, it just starts bleeding clay, but seems solid enough whenever i've tried to check it.