sand bag.

One of the vital pieces of equipment no bowl maker should be without is a sand bag. I made one of an old leather jacket from the charity shop, but it was out of posh leather that the copper ended up slicing to bits leading to sand leakage, that eventually no duct tape could stem. Which is the sigh of a lost cause.

So i found a "welders apron" in the local cheepo shop, its thick raw hide meant to protect the welders private parts from molten metal, so i figure it might be man enough. It was cheep, so i cut a square of clear leather.

It proved a right sod to sew so i took it to a shoe mender in Truro (Timpsons) who for a a fiver glued the edge and double sewed it, remembering to leave and inch open for the sand to get in...

Here it is with a funnel inserted ready for sand....

B&Q has a confusion of sand available, did i need sharp sand/silver sand/ red sand.? Experience with red sand leads me to think i didn't need that, it stains everything it comes in contact with. I chose the cleanest looking sand they had, play pit sand. Which in the past has proved free flowing and nice to use.

So free flowing? I forgot last time i did this i cooked the sand dry in the oven, so ignorance being bliss and with the aid of Harry. I poured it...it clogged constantly and we had to wiggle poke and generally faf about to get any sand in at all...next time remember to dry it out!

Ignore the background that is the best place for doing any work... the living room!....hell we do own a hoover.

Here's the bag fully filled, in fact it might well be over filled...time will tell.

Ok so not quite the next day but close!

A teaser, this is it from the back, for a change i decided to clean up the back to make it all shiny. Usually it will oxidise in a few days but as it was going to be delivered within hours i made it shine.

There it is in all its glory. I think it came out quite well. At least people who saw it could see it was a flying tractor and even read the letters at the bottom. It got put on the wedding present table without a note so even now maybe the happy couple are wondering who the hell gave them a bit of old water tank.

One of three pics i took at the wedding on me phone, i was going to take pics with our nice new camera but... well that's a tragic story to be told another time.

This is the Tumulus , with ring of flowers flags, drummers and that lady is the person who officiated...here she is lecturing us all on what to do/shout/sing etc. Right in the background is the official photographer who wore a fetching ankle length pink tartan skirt, trilby and beard....Behind me was a seven foot rasta, black suit, bowler hat and curious "camberwell carrot" cigarettes.

I very much feared a show of "circus skills " might break out at any time, but we were lucky and none occurred while we were there.

While im at it i bought a new set of letter punches. You may remember i lost the letter E on the last set which made things rather difficult to punch. Especially Jon Of Penryn! This cost me a tenner and is marked Rolson quality tools, which is a laugh, Rolson is no where near quality and arguable not  really tools, but it will work ok for me until i loose another letter, but then maybe i can punch using both sets. Making the punches words look rather like a 1970's ransom note...

i wondered off a bit...

So what's happened? Not a lot to be truthful. Been wandering about been distracted, been having a rest from copper. But Saturday (its Thursday evening now) we have to go to a friends wedding, they are getting married on their farm, in fact on an ancient earthwork (though the farmer reckons it more likely where a previous farmer buried a combine harvester). So what could be better for a wedding present than a bowl ah....well a lot of things, but i work with what i have so a bowl is what they are getting.  This is the failed Pin Up bowl. For days i have been seeking inspiration and found none. Until i chanced on the ancient farm tractor and thought it coudl do with a lift...Here it is with wings! As you can see its just pen now, and it might not work out, but hell i have other bowls, ones im supposed to be selling.....report back tomorrow see if it works in any way at all.

Pin Up ..fail. i feel usless now.

Here she is, partially lined out, i try to use the biggest chisels i can, no sense fiddling about ah...











Notice my mega Cardoon plant, coming along nicely this spring and set to exceed it usual eight foot of greenness, its part of my "inappropriately planted plants" system of gardening.(a Cardoon is a sort of mega thistle that used ot be planted to eat the fleshy leaf stems.)

 Chased and given a dose of vinegar and salt on a wire wool pad....I quite liked it at this point, though the wife pointed out she was showing a bit too much "flange"... but pin ups are supposed to be sexy aren't they?

Here she is again heated and left to go a bit darker to show up things.....hum was that a good i dear i wonder? Here it is from the back too, what i do is to let it go black then roughly scrub it off so the raised lines on the back show up well before hammering it out. It was soon after that i realised it was going a bit "pete tong" the design just didn't work and the face looked like the poor girl had had a really bad face day......







So this morning after trying to save it, i just got fed up with  it and hammered it out....Hard work, as i have to really hammer hard to flow the copper back into the lines, even then some shadow of its former self remains... As you can see its a pretty brutal process...dam, it was  step too far, at least for my patience..bugger!

Sunday must be destruction day

A day spent burning cursed black thorn and brambles. Its surprisingly hard to get going , its all air and no fuel. When it takes though it goes up like a rocket and scorches everything in a 20 ft radius. It kills off the bramble crowns underneath though.... but it's impractical to do it all over. Last year that view would have been of 8ft high brambles, thick as a ships rope. A petrol brush cutter, twice and it's crowns of growing brambles. The one good thing about blackthorn is when you cut it down it seems not to shoot back much. They do have other good things about them, the early blossom in the spring and sloes for xmas sloe gin.....but in this context they are horrible.

another day...

Hers it is a bit more heart shaped. Which took a bit of bashing with big 'ammer on the sand bag. The sand bag continues to leak fine sand all over the place, which is both annoying and concerning. For some reason sand bags seem to be expensive.

The one i have i made from a charity shop leather coat and with a whole lot of sore fingers and swearing i stitched it round the edge. Now its suffered from sharp bits of copper and its punctured in a few places, even duct tape fails to fix it...which means its serious!

Now her it is after turning the edge, always a danger time for me. But it firms it all up and sets in the right way to make it a bowl rather than a floppy round thing...

Today

So i got bored and decided to start another Heart Bowl. Lots of people love the other one, i suspect they know it was hell and just want to make and just want me to work hard....

Here it is cut out and bashed on the tree stump. I'm using the smaller hammer, it gives more control, although its harder work.

More heart shaped here after about four goes round with little rubber hammer.  Notice the bit between the heart lobes is creasing up, i had that trouble last time too....
red hot and left to cool, you can just dunk it in cold water but i'm wondering if i might leave this one smoother, the rapid cooling makes it a bit rougher...and not as i need a rest after the hammering. Well mostly .

 Hammer hammer hammer... her it is at its half crisp stage, half of it is hammered...

Yes i know it's lost all its shape, well almost. Fully crisped now you can hear it squeak its so work hardened! I heated it and i could see it relax with a sigh...my arm however aches like a ... well like an achy thing.

Here we go again

It always seems to be the way of things that i get an idea which seems simple and turns out to be nothing of the sort. And always the silly small things take the longest to make or find.
A while ago i made some medallion things, i'd just acquired a couple of 35mm lenses and took them apart to get at the innards, they suggested a window type bit of jewellery. The proper name of which eludes me at the moment. Anyway i wanted the hang them on a kilt pin, but cant you find a kilt pin with a single loop of suitable size? Can i hell. I did find this in the dark depths of the wife's dusty sewing basket. No idea what it is though, i think maybe something to do with medals or curtains, no one knows, one of life's great mysteries. The only thing on the net i found similar is a "Mayo pin" which is in the same form and too big but used for something , probably yucky, in veterinary practice, therefore expensive.

So i got some piano wire, fiendishly springy with with a mind of its own. I measured the pin as 1.2mm in diameter. Trouble is with wire sizing is, its metric/standard English/American or bizarre. It turns out Piano wire sometimes is measured in Piano wire gage, which differs from any other gage....anyway i got some roughly 1.2mm off an ebay shop  and some big nails from B&Q.If you want to know more about wire gages, google it, 'cos im confused.

Big block of wood in the vice, put the old pin on that, marked where the loopy bits are banged in nails at those points. (i did drill the holes first, the nails would split it otherwise, as i found out the first time i tried...)

Angle grinder to get the tops off, otherwise i couldn't get the wire off when its bent.Notice the sparks, keep anything that might like sparks to ignite well away.

Piano wire is a bit nasty to work with, its so springy its like wrestling a long thin snake with a bite at both ends. You have to take care when undoing a piano wire coil as it can kapoow out and fill the room with sharp coils.
Her i've banged in a wire staple to stop the top bit zooming off the top...

Ah Ha after a lot of swearing and not a little effort i got it bent round the posts. Now to leaver it off. It would be a whole lot easier to do all this red hot, and indeed it bends really well hot, but it loses its temper and turns into normal soft wire and snaps, believe me i have tried.

There's one, i was severely hampered by my cute round nosed pliers being rusty and seized solid so i couldn't use them, they have been soaking in vinegar over night so they might be open able by now. Looks ok i think...

things i made a while back...

Virgin on the ridiculous.
Made a box... i don't like making boxes they have to be square and that doesn't suit me.  I used brass rod for all the innards and kitchen foil covered in PVA glue and paint to do the body...

Similar but i think i made him with epoxy putty (wonderful stuff!)

See who it works, simple as me...

another simple one, basic crank and piston only in wood, it was hard work to make it all fit.

A little different but a simple electric motor, which makes me look like i know about such things but this is about my limit!

The penguin has disguised its self as a nun to escape, at the last moment he is tempted to eat a fish....done with some simple cams..

oh nice

I try to sell things on Etsy, so i try to go in the chat rooms and gets some tips, bit i came across one jeweller who's work is stunning, original and just about the first thing i have seriously thought about buying...

Original, they tell a story and made or interesting metals and finishes..
she can be found here.
http://www.etsy.com/shop/SeldaOkutan/
http://www.seldaokutan.com
http://www.seldaokutan.blogspot.com

Bored so i polished something

Not much to report, the mask i made the other day, i got bored so i polished it. Looks pretty groovy i rekon.......

Copper work has a bit of history round here, in Cornwall. I was doing a bit of research and found this. "Herbert Dyer, 1898-c1974, worked in Mousehole, near Penzance,  during the 1920s, influenced by the Newlyn School of craftsmen near Penzance, Cornwall.  He had joined the Royal Horse Artillery in 1916, was promoted to Gunner-fitter, then Sergeant Instructor Armourer.  He started copper work with trench art.  After service in France, Belgium,  and Egypt he returned to Cumbria in 1922 but had to walk south to find work, setting up a workshop behind a blacksmiths in Mousehole and starting by making items to suit local needs.  Economic conditions ended his work around 1931..."... The bit i like is him being in Cumbria and just walking South, to a bit that must have felt a lot warmer, and stopped, well if he had walked another few miles he would have been in the sea....
http://www.oldcopper.org/newlyn.htm

Dafs,polish and dirty fingers.

Sideways.....that's my clean hand the other is black with dirty polish....

Finished, stop fiddling stop mucking about i have finished.....i have real trouble stopping, i just try different things and polishes and end up going on for ever!

dafs, dogs and shed

Yesterday i went out down the Lizard, just to visit a friend before the fury of half term hit her (five kids!) This isnt her dog but the dog of a friend who lives in a van in the field nearby, her name is Patch, the smallest one of a litter she has the talent of taking off vertically and trying to French kiss you while four foot in the air....

This is her dog Spot, border collie of loose morals and a enthusiastic mother of puppies, the only dog i have been aware of that suffers from PMT....

 My shed with hens trying to hog the limelight. To the right my proud Cardoon, this year set to exceed its usual eight foot height. I know its not a right impressive shed, an ordinary shed really, one day i hope to make a stone shed...Notice the roof, i built a tray top and filled it with soil and planted hardy things, which worked well, until the hens found it, now it their taking off point to drop cannon ball like back into our garden after hunting our neighbours grass for slugs.

Spring...more foliage

The world most inappropriately planted tree fern is alive i feared it had perished in the cold cold winter but no...it is fixing to obscure the kitchen window. Its about six foot across now and if its been raining i get soggy brushing past it all the time...some idiot planted it, sadly that idiot was me.

I think i just heard a flight of swifts screaming down the valley too, that the definitive sign of spring and summer for me.

daffodils...

 Ok so i bashed out the main bowl a few days ago. Here i've resolved the design to a ring of dafs, more and it got too confusing, less and it looked bare.

Lined out from the front, still looking good i think...

 Now bashed from the back, oh dear the dafs seem to have swollen like a badly hit thumb! So i had to re-bash them down and sculpt the flowers. Its unusual for me to do overlapping things (i realise why now) It takes some thought as to what's in front of what, especially from the back and the wrong way round.

Now polished it looks pretty good i think. And even round too , what more could i want!.

I just have to add this pic, the cherry trees at the top of the industrial estate where i got the copper, it SPRING! These tree put on a lovely show for about four days every year, who ever planted them was inspired.

Trebar Gardens, i do go out ocasionaly!

The rhododendrons in Trebar are well out and making pink snow under them...

Or sometimes white too, they really have a good selection of flowering trees...

Wopping great black beetle thing...sitting with a cream tea latter we could hear the buzzing of millions of insects.

I have done some work, cut out the disk for a Daffodil bowl....i've looked at so many dafs ive gone daf mad now...

A lot of hammering latter....the usual crinkle cut crisp look before edge turning and bashing out to lessen the lumps.

air hammer, and small bowls, but not at the same time.

This machine is an air compressor. Not mine but one day i idly commented i wouldn't mind having a go with one, and an air hammer. A dangerous thing round some people i know. yes he had one and i could use it, initially at my shed but i pointed out the dammed thing is huge and heavy, so i volunteered to use it round his shed/workshop.  This thing would be great if you wanted to rivet up a ship but its old cranky and i'm pretty sure its supposed to use oil in its lines, though the owner denied all knowledge of oil and its use. Notice also the use of two tobacco tins as air filters!

Here's the air hammer and the poor bit of copper i tried it on. It had a rudimentary flat chisel in it , far to small and far to rough for what i might need but it gave me the idea. He originally used it for making 200 large copper nails. He repairs wooden boats etc. Impressions are, it not as noisy as i expected, it jumps like a very jumpy thing, its stoke is very short and its easy to work harden the copper to the point of tearing it. Interesting experiment, but hand hammering is where its at!

Here's one of the small bowls i made about 6 to 5 inches across...made i must add entirely by hand.

another one, tattoo inspired again...

more......

last one... its hard to get em even this round!

This is one of the three hens that live in our tiny garden, well they actually live in our garden and next doors too, but he likes hens...She just decided to get in the way of me taking the above pics...thing about hens is, they are dim but endearing, and are convinced that you have the best food where ever you are, so they tend to follow me round and try their best to get in the shed and then eat all sorts of unsuitable things.