Disconnected...

Updating has been rather difficult of late, mainly because my work internet and email connection has been entirely broken for the past two weeks. It's like living in the 80s and I have sent many faxes.

But, stuff and things have been happening on the jewellery front. I found a place in Dulwich that does open studio on Monday nights, which is a bit easier to get to than the Amersham one. It's called the London Jewellery School and is run by Jessica, who is lovely and said I can call them any time to arrange to pop down and fire stuff in the kiln.

So, the helmets are now finished and have been sent to the caster to be molded and I get them back on Monday. I've not had anything cast for years and have no clue how much the cost per piece will be, so I've just ordered 10 each of the helmet designs and 30 chin straps. Couldn't cast it as one piece sadly, so I'll have to solder on each chin strap individually. Bum.

I have three weeks left until Roll Britannia and am feeling a bit despondent about stuff, as I don't think I have enough time to make everything :( The skate is still giving me trouble, as making all the trucks/axles/plate bit of it turned out to be a nightmare. Having never used the silver clay before, I am realising its limitations for small and detailed work, as it's quite fragile and tends to break when you're working on it. Am going to start over this evening and carve/saw/file the plate out of a chunk of thick silver sheet. Fingers crossed...

Also, the caster said I might have to cast the skate in two parts, as there's a lot of undercutting and the metal won't flow into the mold properly if it's all one piece. Which again increases the manufacturing cost per piece. Also, having to solder the base plate to each skate after casting will be a pain in the bum, mainly because my tiny and ancient blowtorch (still using the same one you bought me after college Mum :)) will not get hot enough for solder to flow on a chunky piece of silver.

Bah! This totally turned into a whingy post and I didn't mean it to. Trying not to be negative and just going to keep at it and give it every hour I have, as if I give up now then I'll never know whether I would have been ready in time. That made no sense. I'm going to eat cake now.