MerHorse

Here's a disk of copper that at least started out at 8 inches, its about 7" now since i hit it a few times.

Here it is bashed out and drawn on with the ever faithful Asda initiation Sharpie. Notice the plasticine all round the back.

There it is, black and cooked looking after bashing out the design then flaming it prior to polishing. I didn't dunk it in water to quench it, do that and all the black falls straight off, so i let it cool a bit..

This is the back, an aspect that i take little heed of usually, but its interesting to see i think. See the mankyness of the copper after heating and generally being treated badly.

Ah ha the hand of hammers! It shows its a shallow bowl too, and the neglected nature of our tiny garden. Generally the main gardeners are three hens that live in the garden, they eat anything green and chase cats...and invade my shed.

There it is finished as well as i can do anyway. Would you call it a pin dish? Its quite shallow to eat corn flakes out of..

Ah now, another bowl.

Here's a small one again, its probably harder to make small bowls, more fiddly. I guess its quicker to bash out the basic bowl but the patterns are fiddly. Anyway enuf moaning.

claddagh heart. is the name of the pattern of hands round a heart. I've only ever seen it used in Victorian rings but it is a traditional Irish thing.

I know the central heart is wonky, i'm an artist not a machine! (that's an excuse i often use) I like the way the hands came out, each one different and have their own character. Again green patina seemed wrong, so i flamed it black with the gas torch. Then polished it with "Barkeeps Secret" harsh polish and then Braso. It came up very nicely, quick touch of Renaissance wax and bob your uncle...another bowl is born...

Christmas is over...thankfuly!

Ghastly, not due to the season, mainly due to a house full of (we think) swine flu!...So Christmas dinner was whatever we had in the fridge, anyway on with the motley. Again i've accidentally made a couple of bowls.

Here is what i keep referring to as the "Fish bowl" which confused everyone i told. They all assumed i was making a round bowl meant to hold goldfish. As you can see its pewter, heavily worked, two fish in the bottom, four fish round the side...

Not much more to say really.

Oh there is one thing (looks down and shift the sand round with my foot)...i did sort of , bask it too hard, and ....i bashed a split in it. Just where the fish side meets the flat bottom. Of course my first reaction was to disguise it with the minimum of effort. I hit it again but only made it worse, eventually i decided to fix it properly with.. solder. Now modern Pewter is virtually soft solder in its self, so it melts at the same temperature. Which leads to exiting language in the shed. So this time i decided to get some "Low temperature solder" which is available at Carnmetals(http://www.carnmetl.demon.co.uk/) which is in Pendeen, way down in darkest Cornwall beyond even St Just! As is usual it was lashing down with rain when we went to the cold dark shed and met the nice chap who runs it. And i bought a 100g of softer solder for £3 and one stick of special extra low melt, that virtually melted in my hand. Anyway i did fix it properly, not with a flame though that just produced pools of pewter from my practice bits, i made a curved soldering iron out of ... iron bar. Heated that, and melted the solder and spread it round the split. And you cant even see it now...