Drummer Metal Crafts

Katana: Day 3

2012-02-16T08:39:00.000-08:00

Work has continued on the Katana over the past week or so. When I left off, I was in the process of making the new Tsuba or cross-guard. So what I have done is cut the shape of the original Tsuba out of an ingot of copper. Instead of having the intricate dragons like were on the plastic one, I have hand chiseled two lion heads into the surface of the Tsuba. Kevin specifically asked for Lions so I found an image I liked and scaled it to fit the space I had.

For the finish, I used a heating method that left the surface a red brown so dark that it is almost black. I will clear coat it to prevent the finish from flaking off on anything and it will give it a nice gloss apposed to the matt it is currently at.

The next step was the scabbard, as known as the Saya in Japanese. I had already cut it down to length so I removed the cord and re-painted it. Instead of the ugly white they used, I painted it a blood red and clear coated it to give it a nice shine. That way it would look more like a traditionally laqured scabbard.

The cord at the top of the scabbard is called the Sageo and is tied in a decorative knot around the Kurikata (the knob on the side). The only time you see it tied like this is when it is on display somewhere, if it were to be in use, the Sageo would be used to attach the sword to your waist. I re-tyed the cord using the most commonly seen traditional knot used. All of these terms and knots can be found on-line simply by searching for parts of a katana.

From the scabbard I moved onto the handle known as the Tsuka. Using my dremel, I cut the grove for the tang and re-glued the two halves of the handle back together. I painted it the same as the scabbard and will re-tie the braid or Ito when I am ready to assemble the sword.

The last thing I have done for the time being is add metal shims into the space between the tang and the Habaki or blade collar. Normally this collar is made to be the exact size of the blade but the company that made this obviously used a collar from a different sword so I had to properly space it out.

Finding Comfort in the pages of a book

2012-02-07T15:17:00.000-08:00

From a very young age, my brother would find comfort and solitude in books. By engrossing himself in the words written on a page, he could forget about everything that was happening in his life. Everything and everyone that was bothering him would suddenly not matter anymore when he picked up a book. Even to this day it is almost impossible to find him without a book close at hand. Books and the world created in them, were his protective devise, they allowed him to defend himself from anything.

This being said, the projects I am working on this semester is his protective devise. Like my insanely large hammer, I am building him an equally insanely large book. In researching medieval manuscripts and tombs I came across this image from a blog describing the technical terms for book sizes.

This picture of a medieval portfolio gave me the idea of building Andrew a large book that would transform into a devise he could use to protect himself. To that end I build a foam core prototype so I wouldn't waist material if the design wouldn't work.

The prototype when closed measures 22"tall by 15 1/2" wide and is 3" thick. The plan is for the finished piece to be coated in leather with tooled metal fittings on the spine, corners, and closures. Underneath the leather I am going to have raised and lowered designs that the leather will be embossed into giving it depth and dimension. Around the edge I am going to be placing sections of glued paper so that when it is close it looks exactly like a real book. A tooled leather strap connected to two opposite corners will allow him to easily carry the book on a shoulder. When the book is opened there will be two bolts with guides that slide across the spine and to the other side of the book cover. These bolts are used to lock it open so it won't fold shut. There will also be a handle allowing you to hold it in an upright position. The placement of the handle leaves only one way to hold the book when open. That is with it resting against your raised forearm in a vertical position. With the size of the book (22" by 31" when open), this positioning makes it so that it can only be held in a defensive position covering the head and upper body. Below is the progress I have made on the actual piece.

The cover is made from 16 gauge plate steel, the same type I used in making the hammer head. I cut the pieces with a plasma torch and welded on a screen door piano hinge that allows it to lay flat when opened. The hinge came pre drilled for screws so I simply welded in the screw holes to secure it to the steel plate.

The core of the book is welded from 1 1/2" steel flat stock. I welded two pieces together into a 3" wide piece and used that to make a "C" shaped piece that I tack welded to one side of the book. I then closed the book, flipped it over, and tack welded the other side onto the core. This allowed me to be sure the two halves of the book would line up when closed. After it was all welded, I ground off the tack welds holding the two core pieces together. I now have one insanely big steel book waiting to have a handle and locking guides installed.

Tandgents

2012-02-02T07:51:00.000-08:00

Last semester I went through my review to be admitted into the MFA program here at Wayne State. My admissions committee made the unanimous decision to let me in the program. Several of them though had some concerns about my work. The main concern they had was that it seamed I had the corse of my work planned out for the rest of my career here. I had the different outfits I wanted to do for different people, I knew what ones I wanted to do in which semester, and other stuff like that. They wanted to be sure that if I found an idea that spoke to me, I would be willing to take it and see where it led me. I assured them, that that is exactly how I do my work. It is my opinion that you can only design work to a certain point, from there on the work will tell you how it wants you to do it. If some kind of tangent comes around, you have to be willing to take it.

Less then a week after my review, I had such a tangent come around and I think it is looking to be a good direction for my work to go in.

In one of my individual studio meeting before my review, I was telling the faculty member about my hammer and the other large props I was going to be building. When describing them, I dropped the word "Hero Weapon" and she asked to me explain what that meant. In stage and film, the "Hero Weapon" is the weapon that will receive the most screen time. That means it has to be the most detailed and best looking prop used. Lauren was so interested in this idea, she asked me what the librarian's weapon would be. I had my hammer, I was going to be making the giant spatula and whisk for Kevin, what kind of weapon would Andrew carry being the librarian.

This conversation led to think on what kind of weapon a librarian would carry. People told me I should make a giant pin that would become a sword but I thought that was a little to obvious.

While thinking of this, I was having my reviews and individual meetings with visiting artists. Every person I spoke to about my work, I asked about how to present it. Since it is something that is supposed to be used, about the only thing we could come up with was some kind of presentation or performance. I kept asking because the entire point of my work came about from not wanting to do a performance to be a character at a themed event. This made me realize that my entire idea for the Steamlife work, came about from a need to feel comfortable and safe.

At this point the ideas in my head started to stumble over each other in their attempt to get to the front of my mind. One of these ideas was actually a realization of something I already knew but hadn't thought of in connection to my work. Since I was very young, I have used my work and art to feel better. If I was angry or upset about something, if I needed cheering up, I would make things. This realization made me realize that it was appropriate for my large prop to be a smith's hammer. It is a tool used to create but the size it was built to suggests that it could be used to protect and defend as well.

It was at this realization that a tangent started to form for my work. The problem I had with the steampunk costuming was that it required an explanation as to what exactly steampunk is and even then only a small percentage of people would get it. If I focused on this idea of feeling safe and protected and the tools we use to accomplish it, I could still make my over sized props and get across the idea that originally inspired the steamlife concept but without the need for a performance of any kind.

All of this went through my mind constantly for about two weeks as I plotted and planned this new direction for my work. I have started construction on the next piece in the series but I am going to hold off until next time to talk about it and show what I have done so far.

Ninja and Katana: Day 2

2012-01-31T09:28:00.000-08:00

I have been continuing my work on both the Katana and the Ninja Set and it has been coming along nicely.

The next step in the Ninja set was to complete the sanding and filing on the handles. Thanks to the handles being a thin plywood, the file cut through pretty quickly. Once they were all done I used a dark stain to color them and finished with a clear lacquer to protect the finish.

I originally planned on drilling the handles and using copper tubing to rivet the handles on but I found that the steel used to make the swords was very strong and i had a hard time even attempting to drill through them. Instead, I used E6000 glue to adhere them to the steel. E6000 is a very good and very strong multi purpose glue that will adhere to almost anything.

The only problem with E6000 is it takes 24 hours to dry so I had to tape the handles in place and wait for them to finish.

I would say the finished look it worth it though. The over all weight and feel of the set is still pretty comfortable to use. The wood handles are pretty close to the same weight as the cord handles that were on them.

My work on the Katana has gone away from what I originally planned, but I think it will make a better looking finished piece. The next thing I worked on was cutting down the existing handle to a more appropriate length. I decided on the length of the handle by measuring the scabbard both before and after i cut it so that the handle would have the same shrinkage ratio.

After cutting it to length I cut it in half so that I can hallow out the space for the tang to be inserted.

That led to the issue of the tang itself. Like I said before, a Katana traditionally has a tapered tang that is inset into a grove in the handle. The sword came with a round steel rod welded onto the bottom of the blade. I designed a paper template that would fit on the end of the sword and be the shape of a more traditional tang.

This was then traced on and cut out of a piece of 16 gauge steel. I actually cut it out with a hand saw because I wanted it to be very precise.

You can see how well it fits onto the bottom of the blade. I then welded the tang in place and ground the weld down to the surface of the metal so that it would be flush with the surface of the blade.

I now have a blade with a traditional Japanese style tang.

I was going to be taking the plastic fittings that it came with and cast them out of copper. Looking at it and everything else I need to do, I decided that that would just take too long so I am fabricating new fittings from scratch. They are going to be a bit more simplistic but still keep with the look that Kevin was wanting for this piece.

In making the Tsuba, I traced the shape of the plastic one onto one of my copper ingots and have started cutting the shape out. Once it is cut out I will make the grove for the tang and blade collar to be set into. Instead of having the raised dragons circling the blade, I am going to chisel a tribal lion head onto either side of the blade. It will be much more simplistic but still give it a very nice finished look.

Broadsword

2012-01-30T18:08:00.000-08:00

The last sword that Kevin gave me to work on was his new broadsword. He purchased it so that we could do a class on combat fighting at the con last week. I am pleased to say that the class was a complete success. We had a signup sheet for 20 people and for the last two hours before the class, they were turning people away because the list was full. The room was standing room only and people seamed very excited for it.

The sword itself just needed to have the edge treated a little so that it wouldn't chip so much during use. For a single handed sword, the blade is actually about 6 or 7 inches too long so it is a little tip heavy. It is balanced properly but it should have been a hand and a half sword instead of a single hand. What Kevin didn't know is that I made him a scabbard to go with the sword.

I started by tracing the blade onto two pieces of Oak and milling out 4mm from both on the Bridgeport Mill.

This left enough space for the blade to smoothly go in and out of the scabbard. The next step was to cut the end closer to the shape of the scabbard and glue it together.

Once it was dry, I shaped it by hand with a belt sander and files to give it a nice shape.

The last step was to stain it and buff it with a wax coating to give it a nice shine. I unfortunately don't have a picture of it finished because the stain dried in just enough time for me to give it back to Kevin. For my first time attempting to make a hard wood scarbard, it turned out great and Kevin was very pleased with it.

Ninja: Day 1

2012-01-19T07:10:00.000-08:00

In continuation of my work on Kevin's blades, today I began working on the set of three Ninja Swords.

The blades are made from 440 Stainless Steel which is one of the better qualities of stainless you can make blades out of. The work I am doing to these is to change the handle construction from the simple cord wrap to a wood handle. To this end my first step was to remove the cord. That step took all of about a minute.

My next step was to trace the handles onto a piece of card stock and draw out what the handle pieces would be shaped like.

Next the pattern pieces were traced onto a piece of 1/4" plywood. Since the handle will have a piece of wood on either side I had to cut two pieces from each pattern.

Once all six pieces were cut out I sanded the edges down to the lines I drew so they were the propper shape and size.

To make the handle comfortable when in the hand, I filed the edges of the pieces to round them. Once all six pieces have been filed, they will be sanded and stained a dark color. Tube rivets will be used to attach them to the handles. Once the handles are complete, they will feel more comfortable in the hand and will be about the same total width of the original cord wrapped handle.

Katana: Day 1

2012-01-18T09:28:00.000-08:00

I began the work on Kevin's Katana by first disassembling it. As you can see in these images, at first glance it looks like it should be a Katana, but once you pull it from the scabbard you can see that it is a little short.

I started by removing the plastic end cap from the handle to find what I knew would be there. A simple nut holding the handle onto the sword.

Once the nut was removed, the handle came off easily to reveal what is called a "Rat Tail Tang". Normally, a Katana will have a flat tang that is about half the length of the handle and tappers to a point. It is supposed to be about 3/4 the width of the blade at the widest point. A channel for the tang is carved out the the two halves of the handle that allows the tang to be sandwiched in between. This tang is maybe a 1/4" wide and only about 3mm thick. The hole running the length of the handle is approximately 3/8" in diameter and allowed the handle to turn all the way around the tang.

Here I have cut the tang off of the blade where they welded it on. I am going to grind down the base of the sword to the first step you can see after the blade and weld on a new tang which will be styled after the tradition fashion. A new, shorter handle will we constructed to match the length of the blade and ensure that the handle will not pivot anymore.

The plastic end cap, Tsuba (cross guard), and cap of the scabbard, are going to be cast out of a copper alloy to match the base material for the one metal piece used in the fittings.

The scabbard I cut down to the proper length and sanded to match the arc that had been on the end originally. I will fabricate a copper cap to go on the end and re paint the entire thing to be a rich but dark red.

Swords

2012-01-17T09:06:00.000-08:00

This past weekend I meet up with a friend who gave me some pieces to play around with for him. Over the past few months, Kevin has acquired several new Swords that all need something done to them. The work needing to be done ranges from very simple to very complicated so I am going to devout at least one blog post to each project.

First of all I will explain where these different blades came from.

Two of the swords pictured here (the Katana and the black one) were purchased at the Michigan Renaissance Festival in Holly. This year at the festival there was a new sword vender which was actually a pirate ship. Every day at 4:30 they had an auction where they sold off swords for whatever people were willing to pay. I attended the auction twice and they actually gave away some very nice stuff for a fraction of what they were worth. One of the things they did in the auction was called "Trust a Pirate".

In Trust a Pirate, he would ask for a given number of people that would trust him for a given price. The price usually ranged from somewhere between $10 and $50. He would count out the number of people he asked for from those that raised their hands and they would pay for something from the price that he gave. You had no clue what you were buying until you left the fair grounds. That why it was called Trust a Pirate. These two swords Kevin got by trusting them.

The first one he got at a price of $20 was this three piece set called the Ninja.

It is made out of 440 Stainless Steel and has a simple nylon cord wrapping on the handle. For what he payed, it is actually a pretty nice set and the type of stainless it is made from is among the best quality for something like this.

The next time he went he trusted them again but for $10 and got this.

At first glance it looks like it would be a nice but cheap display Katana. As soon as you touch it though you know why it was only $10. The fittings are all made from plastic, the handle can rotate 360 degrees on the long axis and the blade is only 1/8 of an inch in thickness. Not to mention that the blade is only 3/4 the length of the scabbard so it is actually classified as a Wakizashi (short sword) and not a Katana. This one I am going to be devoting several posts to because it is the most work.

The third sword Kevin gave me is this one, which happens to be the best.

This one he recently purchased from Museum Replicas.com which is a very good site to use if you are looking for any sort of medieval or renaissance recreation garb and equipment. The sword has a 33 inch blade that is made out of High Carbon Steel. The cross guard and pommel are chrome plated steel and the handle is leather wrapped wood. He purchased this sword to be used in live combat, to that end it has no edge on it so it can not cut anything. this is the piece with the least amount of work to be done to it. As it sits it can be used right away for what it was purchased for. I am simply going to take a file and round the edge of the sword so it doesn't have a square edge. This will help prevent it from chipping and getting dinted as it is used against another sword. It doesn't necessarily need to be done but it will help extend the length of the sword and make it easier to maintain after each combat.

If you want, you can actually come to the Epic Confusion event this weekend at the Troy Marriot to see this sword in use. At 6pm on Saturday, Kevin and I are running a sword fighting panel that will include a live demonstration and classroom portion. there are spots for 20 people to sign up and they will actually receive instruction from Kevin on how to fight with a sword. Though only 20 people can do the classroom portion, anyone can come simply to watch the event.

Finished

2012-01-10T06:50:00.000-08:00

Last night at around 11pm, I managed to finish my Doctor Who Scarf. I just measured it and it came to an amazing 16ft 8 inches in length. Originally my plan was to make the first one Tom Baker wore in the show which should have only been 12 ft long. Though I used the correct plans for it, I think the technique I used made it a looser weave so it came out being longer. I might try it again sometime with fewer stitches to make it shorter.

The Scarf part 2

2012-01-07T18:17:00.001-08:00

After several days of working on my Doctor Who scarf I have managed to get it half way done. After laying it out I found that it comes to an amazing eight feet in length. When I finish this scarf will end up being around 16 feet in length.

The Scarf

2012-01-05T09:20:00.001-08:00

Over the past few weeks I have a lot of time on my hands which has been a nice change of pace from the busy school semester. A large portion of my time has been spent planning out what I am going to attempt to do this semester and playing with my new iPhone. I am actually posting from my iPhone right now with the new Blogger app so it's been a lot of fun.

I have also been continuing my Doctor Who watching by watching the episodes from the fourth doctor who was played by Tom Baker. He was arguably the most popular doctor and is in my opinion the most memorable, mainly thanks to his scarf which by the end of his run was a whopping 18 feet long. Over the past few days I have begun construction of my own Tom Baker scarf.

Originally I attempted to crochet the scarf because that is all I knew how to do but after three hours I only had about four inches. I started over again using a knitting board I picked up from Jo Ann fabrics. In two days of work I have managed to make almost two feet of the scarf. As I continue with it I will post some pictures of my progress so people can see what it looks like.

To make it I am using instructions I found from a website completely devoted to the Doctor Who Scarf.

http://www.doctorwhoscarf.com/season12.php

The people that made the website were actually allowed to look at and study the scarf used in the actual show. This allowed them to find our the number of stitches used for each color.

Etsy Sale

2011-12-01T08:07:00.001-08:00

Since I passed my review yesterday, I have decided to do a sale for my Etsy Store. For a length of time that is yet to be determined, I am going to do offering 20% off of everything in the store. Use the code DMC20 when you check out.

Looking towards the future

2011-11-30T11:44:00.001-08:00

I have been thinking a lot about the future recently. Mainly wondering what I am going to do with my life. Especially if the review had had today did not go good. Today I had my admissions review to enter the Master of Fine Arts department at Wayne. I am pleased to say that after my review and the committee member had time to talk, they unanimously decided to admit me to the program. For the next two years I will be working at Wayne State University to earn my Master of Fine Arts in Metalsmithing. Hopefully once that is done it will lead to a teaching position someplace. In honor of time and the amazingly wibbly wobbly thing it is, I have been working on my TARDIS pendant from Doctor Who. The first batch have been made and are no listed on Etsy for all to see.

New on Etsy

2011-11-28T06:17:00.001-08:00

Today I listed two of my Steampunked Sonic Screwdrivers on Etsy so come over and take a look. Later today I will be casting my TARDIS Pendants so keep an eye open for those to be listed in the next few days.

The Doctor

2011-11-21T08:03:00.001-08:00

So recently I decided to get caught up on this thing everyone has been talking about. This thing called Doctor Who. I had known of it, had seen an episode here or there, but didn't really know what it was. So I started watching and I have to say I really like it. For those who don't know, Doctor Who is a British TV show that started in 1963 and ran till the mid to late 80's. It was then started up again in 2005 and is still running. There have been 11 people to play the Doctor and it is one long series. It is always the same Doctor going from one adventure to the next. After the first Doctor had played the character for 4 seasons he decided he wanted to move on. The producers then came up with the idea that when the Doctor is dying, he can regenerate into another form. This would allow him to prolong his life, and it allowed the show to explain why a different person was playing the same character.

He is a time traveling alien from another planet that travels in a TARDIS which stands for Time And Relative Dimension In Space. It is always depicted as a Police Box from the 1960's, the reasoning for this is that he traveled there once and the chameleon curcuit that makes it blind in broke so it has been stuck as a big blue box ever since.

As is normal for me, as I watch something new I start to get ideas from it. This led to me carving and casting a TARDIS pendant. It can be used as a pendent, key chain, or any other number of things. It is about 1 3/4 inches tall and cast out of brass. The blue finish is a metallic wax used for gilding metal. Once I can get some of these cast, they will be listed on Etsy for all the Doctor Who fans to purchase.

In addition to the TARDIS, I did some searching on-line for home made Sonic Screwdrivers. The Sonic Screwdriver is the tool that the Doctor carries around with him, it does more then function as a screwdriver. In one of my searches I found this on a Doctor Who forum. It is a steampunk Sonic Screwdriver that someone made for himself using plumbing parts and some custom fabricated components.

This led me to try making my own using the same type of parts. The main difference with mine is it is all store bought. None of the parts were fabricated for this. I then took an extendable light and disassembled it to put inside the screwdriver. Set screws were added to the shaft of the screwdriver to hold it in place and the treads on the inside of the top of the screwdriver were removed to allow the light to go in farther. The LED light still functions, it still extends to a length of about a foot and a half and the magnet on the end still works.

Johnny 5

2011-11-21T05:46:00.001-08:00

This past weekend I spent my time building the single largest prop I have ever built, Johnny 5 from Short Circuit. I am not however doing it for myself, if I was doing that I would be building a life size TARDIS from Doctor Who. My high school robotics team is participating in the Christmas parade this year and the theme is "christmas cheer through the decades". So what the team is doing is they are constructing a robot from a famous movie from each decade going back to the 50's. The robot they chose for the 80's was Johnny 5.

Since I am a prop maker I offered to helpt hem with this one, also since out of the 10 kids that volunteered to help build it a grand total of one knew who Johnny 5 was to begin with. I set about designing the robot and constructed it from plywood, particle board, cardboard tubes, foam, and duct tape.

As os last night, all the had to be constructed were the arms. The kids are coming over today to prep, paint, and do the detail work to make him look more like a robot.

Sneak Peak

2011-10-27T07:14:00.000-07:00

Last week I did not post very much because I had a review to prepare for. I am pleased to say that the review went very well. This was the eighth week review for MA students, and the people on my comity told me afterwords that normally they are spending the time telling students how they can improve either their work or their skills. With me it was different and they liked the change of pace. They instead spent the time having an intellectual discussion with me on how I come up with the ideas and how I can draw the viewer into the piece. There was no doubt in their minds what so ever that I knew what I was doing and had the skills to do it. That in itself made me very happy to hear.

I was to have a twelfth week review to switch into the MFA program but through a scheduling mess up with a visiting artist to sit on the reviews, that has been pushed back to the week after Thanksgiving. That also made me very happy because it gave me some extra time to get some more pieces made. My goal has become to present the work in a gallery setting for the next review. For how I want that setting to be, I have a lot of work to do but it should be doable.

I found out about last weeks review, which was on wednesday, on monday morning while I was working on the bottom half of my steampunk blacksmith. Over the next 9 hours, this is what I came up with. The pictures are just quick ones I shot in the dirty shop mirror so you will have to ignore the water drips and dirt on the mirror. I did not make the sporran (the puch in front) I simply put that on because a kilt isn't complete without one. What I did was create my own version of a Utilikilt. My version is closer to the design of a traditional kilt in the fact that it has a full size front apron and it still goes all the way to your waist line.

End of another week

2011-10-14T10:00:00.000-07:00

So another week has gone by and I have managed to get a lot done.

I fabricated a label piece for my vest using old brass clock gears. The gears were individually soldered together then attached to a copper bracket I made to emulate the shape of the buckles. After it was all soldered I used Liver of Sulfur on it to darken the copper and give the brass an aged antique appearance. It is held on the vest lapel with five rivets so it can move freely with the leather.

I also finished up the leather panels for the hammer head and assembled them. I still have to take some good photos of it finished but here is what I have. Each panel was riveted on to two 1/2" straps that circle the entire head. The buckles for the straps were fabricated out of more of my copper ingots. The handle is currently drying from having the stain applied and on monday I should be able to put up photos of the finished piece.

I also had an opportunity this week to fix something rather remarkable. An art historian from the department came in this week with a candelabra that needed to be fixed. It is about two feet tall and made out of cast bronze. It is actually from the 18th or 19th century and is done in the Baroque style so it is very ornate and gaudy. It is also plated in gold, but it was done using a technique where by it was applied through the use of mercury. Back then it was a very commonly used technique and often done on clocks. The clocks came to be known as "Death Clocks" because the clock workers wouldn't live too long. Two of the arms were loose and one was almost ready to come off entirely. I had to disassemble the top of the candelabra to take them off then find a way to retighten and attach the arms. It was actually not too difficult of a fix and was similar to the stuff we had down in Memphis.

Next week I will hopefully be finishing off the hammer, vest, and making the bottom half of my steampunk outfit, as well as starting some of the pieces for the other characters.

Vest Update

2011-10-11T07:16:00.000-07:00

While I was shoved in the backseat of a Mini Van on the way to Repair Days, I came up with a great idea of how to make the buckles for my vest. My original plan had been to carve them out of wax and cast them from bronze. That would have required me to make one and cast it, then mold it and create the additional buckles and cast them. Needless to say it would have taken a very long time to complete the process. Then I remembered the ingots I made a few weeks before. When I got back home, I opened up AutoCAD and set about designing a gear shaped buckle. I took what I designed and cut out five buckles using the copper ingots. The process still took me an entire week to make them all, mainly because the ingots are almost 1/4 of an inch thick. On average, I think it took me between an hour and an hour and a half to complete a single buckle.

Once the buckles were all cut, filed, sanded, and I had fabricated the tungs, I put the finish on them. The finish itself was accomplished by using a chemical called Liver of Sulfur which turns the metal black. Where I normally brush it on to the surface, this time I dipped the entire piece in so that there would be a uniform layer over the entire thing. I then used a brass brush to buff it slightly. This made it at the same time a little worn and shinny. A clear gloss spray was then used to seal them so they won't scratch or tarnish anymore.

Here you can see the finished affect. Five buckles all hand made, each individually riveted on to the surface of the vest. I still have one more this size to make for the jacket so before I do the finish I am going to mold it. That way I can do the casting process and make a production line of these buckles. As far as I know there is nothing like this out there on the market for people that want to do their own steampunk costumes.

The next step is to put the gears on the lapel. I am taking old brass clock parts we found at an antique store and riveting them onto the lapel to give it a little more decoration. I did some experimental layout this morning and I think this is what I am going to go with. I am also going to fabricate a border to go around the outside edge to make it stand out a little more from the body of the vest.

Repair Days

2011-10-04T08:45:00.000-07:00

Over the weekend I went down to Memphis Tennessee with six other people from Wayne to participate in something very unique. Repair Days at the National Ornamental Metals Museum has been going on for quite some time. Basically what happens is people bring their broken or damaged metalwork to the Metals Museum. It can be something as simple as a broken pair of glasses to something as complicated as an antique piece of cast iron needs to be welded or re-cast. Metalsmiths from all over the country come to volunteer their time to repair these objects. The proceeds from the repairs all go towards the museum in-order to keep it running.

The event is open to the public and all of the repairs are either done in a large tent with work stations set up in it, or in the museums blacksmithing shop. The people that brought their pieces in to the fixed wonder around the Museum grounds looking at the sculptures, seeing the museum exhibit, or watching pieces being fixed. Its sometimes interesting to be sitting there working on a repair and have the owner look over your shoulder to see what you are doing.

Saturday night there was both a silent and live auction, where people bid on items donated by the different metalsmiths that volunteered for the event. Again, all the proceeds of the auctions went towards the Metals Museum. This year, the big item at the live auction was a lockback folding knife made by a student at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale named Andrew Meers. The knife was made out of Damascus Steel and had pearl inlayed in the handle. It ended up going for $1600 which was well worth it.

After the auctions there was an Iron pore done in the foundry. Since it was about 9 or 10 at night, the pore looked amazing with all the molten metal and sparking iron.

Kyle is the other Metals Grad student, we did a joint fix on this antique gramophone horn.

This years Master Metalsmith giving a demo on working with Pewter.

John graduated from the Wayne program last semester but is sticking around doing some post bachelors work so he came down.

Dave fixing something that had been giving him some problems. He did end up getting it done though.

Blacksmith Vest

2011-09-27T07:29:00.000-07:00

This week I began work on some of the clothing I am making for my grad work. This first piece I began is going to be a Steampunk style blacksmith's vest. It is intended to be something that a smith would wear while working in the shop and on the forge. To do this, I decided to make it out of the same consistency of leather that is used for making modern welder's jackets. So far I only have the body of the vest made, I still have to make all the buckles and extra pieces that will be added on to complete it.

To make this vest, I have done something that I have never done before. I have made the pattern from scratch, I'm very pleased that it fits perfectly considering I have no clue what I am actually doing. My skill in sewing comes from years of watching my grandma make me costumes. It seams that I am a visual learner and all that time I was sitting there talking to her, I was actually learning how to sew. This was reinforced a year or so ago when I was watching Project Runway with my mom and I was able to understand what they were doing on the show without having ever seen that step of the pattern making process before.

In order to make the pattern, I first had to have Melanie help me make a duct tape sewing mannequin. We accomplished this by having her tape me up in a spare t-shirt then cut me out of it. The t-shirt was the taped back together over a male display mannequin I had and the space in between filled with newspaper.

Once the dress form was finished, I used 1/4" tape and made tape lines on it to represent where I wanted the seams and edges of the pieces to sit. I then pined newsprint to it and traced over the lines to create the different pattern pieces.

From there it is about the same as if you were making anything else. I traced the pieces onto my leather and cut them out.

The only real difference between this and anything else I had done is the machine I had to use to stitch through the leather. Since it is so thick, my standard machine wouldn't work with it. Fortunately over the summer I managed to acquire a different machine and after using it for the first time yesterday, I LOVE IT.

This is my Singer 95-12 industrial Sewing Machine. Andrew helped me do the research and it turns out the this is only the second model of industrial electric machine that Singer ever made and it was built in 1923. It still runs great and it is a perfect example of the phrase "They don't build them like they used to."

Etsy Sale

2011-09-26T13:10:00.000-07:00

With all the work I have been doing in the studios, I have decided to have a sale in my Etsy store to try and make way for some new products. For the next week or so, I will be having a 20% off sale on my entire store. Just us the coupon code DMC20 when you go to check out and you will get 20% off.

Video Blog Day

2011-09-22T07:44:00.000-07:00

So I decided to take some video of me working on the leather yesterday. I know my previous posts on leather working gave descriptions but I wanted to do something that would let people get a better idea of what is involved with this process. So today I have both still images and video of the swivel knife step of the process.

After you have stenciled out your design on the leather, you use the swivel knife to cut into it and leave a line for you to place the chisel on. This line makes it so you can do everything else to the leather. When you hold the swivel knife you place your index finger on the "C" shaped rest on the top of the knife. You then grip the bottom of the knife near the blade with you thumb, middle, and ring fingers. This is what allows you to have the most control over the knife. You will of corse have to move it around in your hand to find the position that feels the best to you.

As you cut the leather you want to use the tip of the blade, not the entire length. There are two types of blade, angled and straight, so you will have to figure out how to hold it with either design. I prefer using an angled blade because it gives you a nice tip to use. You place that tip on the leather and pull the knife towards you. You will probably want to go pretty slow at first so you don't loose control of the knife. Apply enough pressure to go almost half way through the leather but not quite. When you chisel it will push the cut down even further and you don't want to puncture the leather.

The blade that I use for my swivel knife is made out of porcelain but most knifes will come standard with a steel blade. Both work great but the steel you have to be a lot more regular about sharpening. If you don't sharpen it, the blade will rip through the leather apposed to cutting it. The porcelain blades need to be sharped but very infrequently, you also have to use a special sharpener on them.

As promised, here are two videos of the swivel knife process. Hopefully they will help you understand the process a little better.

Now that I have covered the video part for the day, I want to share the progress on the carving itself. I have pretty much finished the three pieces I had started for the hammer, as well as started another piece for a different project.

I'm trying to figure out what I want to do about the color. When I saw it on the sample piece in the store, i thought it was perfect. Now that it is on the leather I don't know if I like it. The only problem is there is no way to remove it once it is on. I can dye it a darker color like black, or put more coats on to darken it, but I will have to remake it to try a lighter color.

This is going to be a book cover for one of the other outfits I am designing. The book is a collection of Edger Allen Poe so I thought the image was appropriate.

Tooled Leather

2011-09-20T07:22:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I pulled out my leatherworking box and did something that I have not done in some time. I tooled some leather. Back in April of 2010 I did a post called Leather-Working. In that post I went over the process I used for making the outer bracers for my Link costume from Legend of Zelda. For the work I am doing now I am going to be using a lot more leather working and there will be some more posts like this one, but with more detail about the process for more complicated pieces.

The hammer that I have been blogging about recently is going to have some leather aspects added to the head and handle. Yesterday I tooled two of the pieces for the head. If you fallow the process I used for the bracers, the image bellow is from tracing the stencil onto the leather. For this particular design, I created my own image using AutoCAD.

The above image shows the AutoCAD file that was created, while the image bellow shows the leather once I had cut the design in using the swivel knife.

The image above was taken after the tooling was done and the one bellow was when I cut out the insides of the gear so that the steel of the hammer will show through once it is put on.

You can see that I tooled two pieces to look exactly the same. These are going to be the sides of the hammer as was shown above. The top of the hammer is going to have the gear in the background with my winged anvil in front of it. The pieces will be held in place by strips of leather riveted along the black sides. You can see that I left 1/2" wide strips of un-tooled leather where they will be added. The panels will be dyed a color that is called "Ox Blood", it is a nice deep blood red burgundy. I actually dyed these two this morning but I am waiting till they dry and are buffed before showing them.

New Website

2011-09-14T10:03:00.000-07:00

So for a few months now I have been working on making a new website for myself. There is still a bit of work to do on it but most of it is ready.

http://drummermetalcrafts.webs.com/

Copper Ingots

2011-09-14T09:36:00.000-07:00

This morning I spent some time going through the large scrap bin in Wayne's metals studio. It is full of just little slivers and unused pieces of copper and brass. People occasionally manage to find something in there that they can use for a piece but most of it is too small to be used. So I decided to in-act the Wayne State Recycling Program. Using only a small amount of it I made myself several ingots of pure copper and one of pure brass. These will be used to make some sheet metal and some forged pieces. Whats nice is it is a way to take something that would be sitting there for a long time and turn it into something usable.

The green flame is from the zinc and other chemicals burning off of the metal.

The above ingots are copper while the one below is brass. There will be fewer brass made as to the fact that you have to use a lot of ventilation and wear a respirator. If you don't it is very likely for you to get zinc poisoning.

Hammer Update

2011-09-13T10:12:00.000-07:00

There is still a lot of work to be done before this hammer will be finished, but I have managed to finish the head.

To go over the process again, I first made a large wooden block from pine boards that I then cut into the shape I wanted. I then drilled holes in the wooden head to try and get some of the weight out. Next I started the sheeting process. I cut out a total of 10 different plates of steel to weld together for this. After welding each plate in place I would grind away the extra material and make the seam nearly invisible. The tricky part with this one was the facetted areas in the front of the hammer. For those I cut a single piece and bent them before welding so that they would flow smoothly. I also did that for the back of the hammer instead of trying to weld the bend. The last picture is intended to give you some kind of a scale, that is my classic Ipod sitting next to it.

The handle that is shown here is what I had intended to use with it but seeing it now I have decided to do something else. I am going to get a wheel barrow handle, which is about 3 inches square and about 5 feet long, and cut it to the length I want. I am then going to carve it by hand into the shape I want it to be. It will be a little more work then I had intended but it will end up looking a whole lot better.

I have also decided to make a leather covering to go around the middle of the hammer head. It will be out of a thick tooling leather so I can carve all sorts of cool designs into it and add in brass buckles and rivets. Both ends of the hammer will still be exposed though so you can see the steel. I will also make matching hand holds for the handle which will help tie the two pieces together.

A New Hammer

2011-09-08T06:31:00.000-07:00

This week I have been working on my large blacksmithing hammer. I started plating it out and am actually amazed at how fast its going. I should be able to have it mostly finished today if all goes well.

It begins again

2011-08-31T05:58:00.000-07:00

Today is the first day of classes for the new semester at Wayne State University. There will be a lot going on this semester and there apparently was a lot going on over the summer. I came in a few days ago to find they are re-doing half of the advanced room so that we now have studio space for four more students. We also now have a Bridgeport Milling Machine which should be fun. To my amazement I found all of my stuff still in its proper place, it is amazing because I seamed to have left my locker unlocked for the entire summer.

This semester I have several big things going on. First and most importantly, I will be once again applying for the Master of Fine Arts program. This will require me to make new work, re-write my artists statements, and go through another interview process. I am hoping that this time I manage to get in. I have several new pieces I am going to be working on including the hammers. I also have found a way that will allow me to combine the metalworking and the costuming into a single field. Hopefully everyone will like it.

This semester I am also starting a new on campus job. For the next semester at least I will be a Gallery Attendant in the two on campus art galleries. While the show is up I will be an attendant which simply means I will be the person in the gallery to watch the works and great people who come in to see them. Between shows I will be helping to deinstall and install the previous and next show. I will be learning all about how to prep an prepare for a gallery exhibit as well as how to set one up and run it. I just have to do some checking with financial aid because my account might be set up to put my pay towards my student loans instead of in my pocket. On top of all that, I have to find a job for the weekends because very shortly I will be the starving artist everyone hears about. My dwindling personal funds are really dwindling at this point.

So keep your eyes open for blog posts in the near future. I will have lots of stuff to talk about and lots of stuff to put up photos of as I go.

Vacation Time

2011-08-25T07:15:00.000-07:00

After a nice long, hard summer full of work for both of us, Melanie and I decided to take a vacation. We chose to go to Saugatuk which is a little town out on the coast of Lake Michigan. For our time here, we picked a nice little bed and breakfast called Serendipity. We are not staying in the B&B however, they have a separate building called the Lightkeeper's Cottage. It is right next to the B&B but it is a private cottage with a fenced in area containing its own hot tub. The cottage itself has about as much floorspace as the garage I work in but it is nice and relaxing. One of the things we like most actually is that the queen bed is in a loft that is over the kitchen nook. To get to the bed you actually have to climb a latter and there is not enough space up there to stand. Yesterday, after checking in to the cottage, we went and explored the town for a bit. There are lots of little local shops and restaurants, as well as several nice sized antique stores. We went swimming in Lake Michigan and watched the sun set on the lake. I'm sure today we are going to do even more fun stuff and I'm sure to post some more pictures.

Etsy Update once again

2011-08-19T11:27:00.000-07:00

I have spent some time today adding some more supplies to my Etsy site. I now have several different type of pewter charms and pendents listed for sale. All of them were either carved or molded myself then past using the lost wax casting system. Though I am good at metal working and jewelry, designing jewelry has never really been my strong suite so I am hoping someone else will be able to find a good use for these in what they do.

Etsy Up and Running

2011-08-17T13:10:00.000-07:00

My Etsy Store is once again up and running. I have re-listed some of my Silver Bracelets with new and improved photos. I have also started listing some supplies for others to buy to use in their own jewelry making. Since I have no problem doing the small repetitive stuff like making jump rings, I have started to list bundles of jump rings so others don't have to do it. I will also in the coming days be listing some of my charms on their own apposed to on chain or cord so that others can use them as they are. Come and take a look to see what its like and maybe you will get inspired to make something.

A New Hammer

2011-08-15T18:57:00.000-07:00

Last semester when I made the two Thor style hammers at Wayne State, something happened that I did not account for. Evan Larson liked them so much, that he said I should make the other designs I had come up with as concept sketches. He thought that the hammers would work very well for some portfolio pieces when I re-apply for the Masters of Fine Arts program this fall. The main thing he seamed to like was the fact that I made something that looked like it should weight a lot more then it actually did. It was also a great way for me to merge the costuming and metalworking into a single field.

All of the designs I made were supposed to be about the same size as the Thor hammer but one of them I have decided to drastically change from the original design. It was supposed to be an over sized blacksmithing hammer but I am actually upping the scale to make it even more over sized. One of the costumes I'm designing is a Steampunk Blacksmith. It will be my first real original character. When I started looking at making the hammers, I thought it would be a great idea to make the blacksmith hammer into a large prop to use for the costume. So I enlarged the design to be something to carry over a shoulder instead of in a single hand.

The process I am using is basically the same I used for the Thor hammer. I started by making a large block of wood out of pine planks. The block ended up being 8 inches tall, 7 inches wide, and 16 inches long.

The first step was to plot out the cuts on the back end of the block. These cuts will form the peen end of the hammer. In this case I am making what is called a straight peen hammer. This means the bar peen is vertical apposed to horizontal like you see on most blacksmithing hammers. I chose this hammer design for several reasons. This style of hammer is often used in tool and bladesmithing, it would also work very well for combat. Since this is going to be the main prop for a character that gets into fights, I wanted it to be something that could be used as his main weapon.

Once the peen was cut I started in on shaping the head of the hammer. Each of the angled faces were made by doing two individual cuts into the block. Thankfully, the saw I was using can rotate at the grip so that you don't have to bend your arms in an uncomfortable position.

All the cutting on this one is now complete. The last picture here gives some scale for the block thanks to the 12 inch ruler I put on top. In the next few days I'm going to start sanding it so that the surface will be smooth. I am also going to be picking up a handle for the hammer and drilling holes in the head. As it sits right now, its weighing in at about 10 to 12 pounds. Given the size, the steel plate for this one will being it up by at least 4 pounds. The holes I am going to drill all over the surface will hopefully lighten up the head by a great deal. Once the plate is cut and welded, there won't be any way to tell that the holes are there at all.

Etsy Store

2011-08-10T15:34:00.000-07:00

All current listing on my Etsy Store will be expiring some time in the next 24 hours. Once they are down, there will be nothing put back up for a little while because I am re-doing how I sell products. If you have liked anything that is currently up there, buy it now while it is still up.

Nerf Modification

2011-08-09T13:10:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I decided to give a try at modifying a Nerf Blaster. I had never done it before but since it is so popular among the steampunk crowd I decided to give it a go. I started with the simplest gun I had which I picked up at a garage sale for about $2.

The first thing I had to do was take the gun apart and remove the inner workings. You don't have to take the gun apart to paint it but I didn't want any of the original color showing. I then did a light sanding of all the parts to be painted so that the surface would take the paint better.

The first coat of paint was a simple black. I used this as a primer since the other two colors are dark. All the paint I used for Krylon Plastic Fusion.

Next, the shell was painted with a hammered copper metallic.

After letting that dry, I taped off the area I wanted to remain copper so that I could paint the next color.

The last paint layer was a Metal Flake dark Pewter

The tape was removed and the interior components were prepped to go back into the gun.

Everything was put back in correctly thanks to some detailed photos taken before taking them out.

Then the shell was put back together for the finished product.

Now that the gun is painted I can look into adding some decorative elements to make the gun look more steampunk. Since I know I can do this I will be trying again with a slightly more complicated gun the next time.

Philmont

2011-08-04T09:58:00.000-07:00

I know its been a while since I last posted, but I have had a lot going on recently. I had a week at Scout Summer Camp, then a week or so break before I went off to Philmont Scout Reservation. Philmont is the worlds largest youth camp, set in the Rocky Mountains of New Mexico near Cimmeron. In all there is close to 213 square miles on Philmonts property and all of it owned by the Boy Scouts of America.

This was my third time going there so I had a little bit of an idea of what was going to happen but where in the past I was a youth member, this time I went as a Crew Advisor. Since I had the most hiking experience and the most Philmont experience, I was the leader in charge of seven youths and three other adults. This was interesting in the fact that I was the youngest adult we sent out there.

In a total of 12 days, we hiked around 54 miles, walked another 20 to 25 miles around the campsites we had, climbed a mountain that was 12441 ft high, blacksmithed, panned for gold, threw tomahawks, shot black powder riffles, saw 1000 year old petroglyphs, saw the worlds only confirmed T-Rex footprint, climber spar poles with spikes on our feet, and many more things besides. They normally say the Philmont is a once in a life time opportunity, though this was my third time, it is still what they say. I will never again be there with the same people and have the same experience as I had on this trip. Every time you go there it is different, some stuff had changed, some hadn't, but it was all a new experience.

In the Philmont Hymn that was written for the camp many years ago, they state that this area of the country is called "Gods Country", some of the pictures I took while out there perfectly show why they called it that. I will never see more stars in the sky then when I was out there, I will never find another place that has not been changed from when it was made. While watching a sunset or a sunrise from one of the mountain tops out there, you can see what this world was meant to look like before we covered it with buildings and machines. I'm glad that the land is preserved and they are always getting more land donated to their us, it will always be able to be viewed that same way I saw it this summer.

Summer Fun

2011-06-30T08:20:00.000-07:00

I have not been posting very much as of late because of all the stuff that I have been doing. Last weekend I helped with the local Relay for Life. I will be posting pictures of what we did once I get then from the person that had the camera. The week end before that we had the garage sale fundraiser for the Relay, we managed to raise over $2000 in the sale. This weekend I am going off to summer camp with the boy scouts up in west branch at Cole Canoe Base. I will be there for an entire week have all sorts of fun.

Once I come back from that camp I will have a week until I leave for another scout camp. This one is Philmont Scout Reservation in New Mexico. That trip is 12 days long and I will be hiking in the rocky mountains for about 72 miles, the entire time with a 30 pound backpack. It will be my third time going but this time I am the leader for the crew. Be sure to keep an eye out for several posts after I get back that will be completely filled with pictures. The last time I went I took 13 roles of film, I would have taken more but I ran out of film.

On top of all that has been going on I currently do not have a computer due to the fact that I seamy it in to get money towards purchasing a new one. Six years with a single computer is pretty good in my book.

After all this is done I will finally be able to sit down and start on the work for school that I should have been doing this entire time. This semester I re-interview for the MFA program at Wayne.

Antique Trip to Flint

2011-06-26T13:04:00.000-07:00

After several weeks of work for both melanie and I, we took a day and had some fun going to the Flint area. We went to four antique stores and found tons of cool things at them, Some of them we even bought.

This is a cool, old, potbelly stove. They had two of them at this store that had been very nicely restored. They also had two others there that had not been restored with some large cracks running through them.

This as a pretty cool find. Its a clock, that instead of running off of a pendulum of something like that, it ran off of a punch card style devise.

Melanie picked this up, its a 1966 creature maker. In the 90's they remade it with an inclosed heating system that ran off of a light-bulb. It made it a bit safer since this one uses a hot plate.

This is a cow milker

This was the first time I had found something from the civil rights movement so I wanted to take a picture of it.

Once we got home, we went to the local chinese restaurant and when we came out, this was across the parking lot.

World Steam Expo 2011

2011-05-29T15:07:00.000-07:00

It has been some time since I posted anything but I have had a lot of stuff going on. I am getting ready for a two week backpacking trip to New Mexico, I was getting ready for a convention that I will be talking about in this post, and I have been working on some commissions for people. This weekend I have been attending the World Steam Expo in Dearborn Michigan. This is the second year that it has been put on and it is a great gathering of people from all over the country. They have had panels on everything from men's grooming tips to performances by Abney Park. Something that has really amazed me is that close to 90% of the people attending the Expo are in some form of costume. I am used to only seeing about 20 to 30%. There were some very interesting outfits like the one shown here which was a steampunk Klingon from Star Trek.

Each day there has been a different theme to what the day would be, the firsts day theme was military dress so I put together this Civil War Captain uniform.

Saturday was explorers and adventurers so I put together a gentlemen gunslinger outfit.

These next two images are from the first Abney Park concert of the Expo. They are a Steampunk Band that is very good and very popular. Even if you aren't into the steampunk community there is a good chance you will like their music. They actually played two songs from the new album they have not yet released, one of them has never been heard before.

This is one of the special guests at the Expo, his name is John Strangeway. He is a member of a group called Penny Dreadful Productions. They do many things including prop and costume making. Though they aren't exclusively steampunk artists, thats what they use to show off their talents.

This lady just had a really cool mechanical bird on her shoulder.

This gentlemen runs a shop called Brute Force Studios. A lot of the more elaborate steampunk accessories that people are shown wearing are made by or based off of their pieces. The mechanical arm that he is shown wearing here was the exact arm worn by Nathan Fillion in ABC's hit show "Castle". Below you can see two shots of Nathan wearing the arm.

There is still one more day to the Expo and a good portion of us will probably be invading Green Field Village at some point during the day. There is a re-enactment of a Civil War battle so they will be swamped by many people in victorian garb.

Thor Premier

2011-05-07T14:34:00.000-07:00

This weekend was the premier for the Thor movie. I went both Thursday and Friday night to the Star Great Lakes Crossing to help advertise for the movie in my costume. It seamed that it went very well over all, everyone seemed to really like it. On Friday, a good deal of the people thought I was a statue when they first saw me. One women even doubled back to pock my arm to make sure I was real.
These pictures are from the Thursday night opening.

This was the only other person that showed up in a costume.

Dan Ling Service Award

2011-04-26T16:15:00.000-07:00

This week I have been working on a service award that is being given out by the local branch of the Order of the Arrow. The OA is a service organization within the Boy Scouts of America. It is mainly described as the National Honor Society of the BSA. The local branch has a service award they give out each year in the spring called the Dan Ling Service Award. They recently ran out of the medals and needed some more made. Since I had previously made some other awards for them they came to me.

The process I used isn't what I really wanted to use but I was short on time. This first image show all of them. On the far right is the original piece they gave me to mold and duplicate. The two in the middle are pieces I made from a plaster mold while the one on the left is from a rubber mold.

In this image you see the original on the right and the plaster mold on the left.

In this one you see the plaster on the right and the rubber on the left

I would have preferred to get three out of the plaster mold but it decided to kill itself when I removed the casting.

N.U.E.T

2011-04-22T17:59:00.000-07:00

For the past week I have mainly been working on stuff for school. The end of the semester is coming up and were trying to get a lot of stuff taken care of.

In the non school related front, I have completed the hammer I was making for the joister, as well as finishing the one I was making for myself. I am also in the process of making some awards for a local boy scout organization. One of my next posts will be all about those so you will be able to see pictures then.

The big thing i have been doing is preparing for penguicon. Next weekend is the 2011 con being held at the Troy Marriott Hotel. My friends Justin, Kevin, and I have decided to create a performance troop. We got the idea at the last con we were at when Justin and I did the Blues Brothers. So, we have created N.U.E.T, the Nearly Useless Entertainment Team. We will be going to different events with the purpose of entertaining people by making complete fools of ourselves. Go check out the site and come to the con and see us in person. It should be a fun time for everyone.

DIA visit and finished helm

2011-04-13T11:07:00.000-07:00

Last week, Melanie and I took a trip over to the Detroit Institute of Art to take a look around. I was a bit ashamed that that was my first visit to look around in a decade. The big thing that I focused on was the collection of armor they had in the grand hall. It was mainly donated from William Randolph Hearst's personal collection. They had some very nice pieces on display that I took some pictures of. Melanie said she had fun listening to me geek out about the armor.

Seeing all the armor made me remember that one of the things that got me into metalworking in the first place was armor and weapon smithing. Out of all the work I have done this semester, the thing I have enjoyed the most was making the Thor helmet. I don't know for sure yet but I might do some armor fabrication for my graduate work.

So over the last several days I have managed to finish the Thor Helmet, or get it finished to a point. I have been having some issues with the paint job on it so after I have used it for what I was making it for I might see about having a professional finish put on it.

The primed helmet

The painted helmet

The finished look

100th Post

2011-04-11T09:27:00.000-07:00

So this is my 100th post for this blog. There are several things I wanted to share with you today. First of all, I am close to being done with the Thor Helm. I am going to a chrome place today to see what they would charge for me to have it chrome plated. Hopefully it won't be that expensive because it would look cool all shiny.

Secondly, with this being my 100th post I have decided to do a sale on my Etsy store. For the next week I will be having a discount sale of 20% off the entire store. The code for the sale is 100THPOST

Helm

2011-04-06T09:08:00.000-07:00

Last week I went into the theater my brother works at to show them pictures of the Thor costume I am wearing to the premier for them. One of his managers asked me if I was going to have the helmet. At the time I said no because with less then a month to go, I didn't think I could do it. When I was home though I started to think about it. Why couldn't I have the helmet? So I started working on it. I thought it would take a long time to make it but what I have so far took surprisingly little time to do. So far I have spent about four hours on it.

I started by cutting and shaping three plates of 16 gauge steel. The method I am using for this is a traditional armor technique for helmets except that they would have used rivets where I am using a MIG Welder.

Once I had the plates, I had to individually position them and weld them in place. The little dots you can see on the seams are from the welder. Instead of doing a full seam, I am tack welding them in place. It will be nice and strong but I wouldn't want to get hit in the head because the tacks might come apart with enough force. Thats why I'm putting a lot of them.

Now that I have the beginning hemisphere, I made a paper template for some of the detail work that I then cut out of plate to weld on top of the two side pieces. This was to give it some more depth and decoration.

This was the end of one days work, then this morning I started with the back and front plates to finish the general shaping to the helmet. The back was relatively simple to do but the front posed some issues.

For the front I had to cut two pieces that I then welded and ground to create a long panel. This front panel would serve to create the eye holes and brow line, as well as making shapes to weld the wings onto the sides.

The next step which will be done later today is to cut out the wings and shape them. There will be some welding done to them before they are attached to the helm itself but in all, I am very pleased with it so far and might start making more helms as part of my work.

500 Rings

2011-04-04T07:02:00.000-07:00

Last week I submitted work to the Lark Books "500 Series". These are a series of books that give people an idea of what other artists are doing in different fields. They have done knives, metal Vessels, pendants and lockets, and many more. A few years ago they did "1000 Rings" and it was so popular that now they are doing "500 Rings". I decided to submit some work for it. Two of these you have already seen in an earlier post but the third I made just for this.

This third ring is cast sterling silver with a large glass gem. The design is derived from a set of late 1800's figure eight hand cuffs. The idea was a conceptual piece about how people in society are prisoners of the concept of wealth.

Thor is completed

2011-03-27T17:41:00.000-07:00

I managed to finish my Thor costume this weekend so here are the pictures.

Thor's Hammer

2011-03-23T17:51:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I started working on a hammer that I was commissioned to make for someone. His base design was Thor's hammer so I'm making two at the same time so that I will have my hammer for my costume. I started by cutting pieces of board and gluing them together to create a wooden block.

I then cut it down to the size and shape that I wanted the hammer to be. This included the mitered edges.

After sanding down all the ruff cuts I drilled the hole that the handle will go into, this left me with a giant wooden mallet,

The next step was to trace each surface of the hammer onto a piece of plate steel. I them went about the process of cutting out the pieces with a plasma torch. With the pieces cut, I then started tack welding them in place around the wooden block. This allowed me to simply lay the plates on the wood and hold them in place as I welded.

After tack welding the entire hammer, I went back through and finished the seams. It was interesting doing this because the wood kept catching on fire and smoking in my face.

Now that there are nice big gobs of welding material on the seams, I had to go over it all with an angle grinder and smooth it out.

The grinding revealed spots that had to be welded again, either because I missed them or the metal started to melt through. I went through the welding and grinding process again and I actually could have done it another time or two to fill up all the holes. In the end I decided to leave it with some holes and pock markers to make it look more like a hammer that had seen use. The last thing I did was sandblast the surface to give it a uniform finish.

I will be going over the surface with a steel brush to burnish the surface so it has a nice satin glow to it. After all is said and done, the hammer ended up weighting about 5 3/4 pounds with an overall length from bottom or handle to top of head of about 18 inches. This hammer is going to have words engraved on two of the sides where mine will be just the plane hammer.

Bead Bonanza

2011-03-22T07:45:00.000-07:00

This weekend I went to the spring Bead Bonanza with Melanie. It is held in Southfield twice a year and is a bead show for people that do beadwork jewelery. Melanie was selling her beads and did pretty well for not having her standard stuff. I went looking for some stuff to use in pieces and managed to find lots of stuff I wanted but most of it wasn't in my price range. Here are the things that I got at the show.

These two pieces are about the size of a dime and are called Fordite. They are made from layers of compressed paint, originally from the Ford factory.

The stone on the right is the standard Tiger Eye and is about the size of a nickel. The one on the left is called Tiger Iron.

I picked these up a while ago at a flee market but I managed to find the lenses to put in them so that I can actually see with them. I'm going to use them in some form of a steampunk outfit.

I also picked up a lens that magnifies and a lens that reduces, figured I could have some fun with those.

Antique Store and Thor Update

2011-03-18T15:40:00.000-07:00

Today I am going to have two parts to the Blog. First of all, this was Spring Break Week at Wayne State University, so Melanie and I had some fun. On Monday we drove down to Findley, Ohio and went to Jeffery's Antique Center. We had been there once but only had an hour to go through it so we didn't get too far. This time we spent about five hours there so you can get an idea of how big the place is. Here are some of the things we saw while looking around.

A WWI Dough Boy Helmet

This was a butchers block but I thought it would work perfect as an Inn Sign

These are Bull Blinders to prevent a Bull from seeing but they could very easily be made into something else

An old apple peeler, there were four of these in the store

I ended up buying these Tailor Sheers, they are large and heavy so I'm going to use them for leather

I also got these Pince-Nez sunglasses

I love the way Melanie looks in a Bowler hat

So now for the Thor update. I've worked about six hours today on it and am very happy and excited. I almost can't wait to get it finished I'm so happy about it.

I first added the middle disks and the bands coming out of them

I made two of these panels that are made up of 7 layers of vinyl to give it the depth it has

This is what it looks like thus far.

There is still a central piece I have to make that will be done the same way as the two panels, the belt, the gauntlets, and the cape. My progress is good but there is still a long way to go.

Another Thor Update

2011-03-15T11:42:00.000-07:00

So this week I have made some exciting progress on Thor. First of all I removed the duct tape from the sleeves and it drastically improved how I am able to move in it. Then I started in on the vest. The photos that fallow are a series of progress shots of what I have done so far. There is still a lot of work to be done to get it even close to looking like his vest but its getting done.

The Twin Gods: Part 3

2011-03-09T14:03:00.000-08:00

This week, I have worked on shaping the two crowns so that after Spring Break I will be able to start soldering. Here is the crown for Apollo.

Here is the crown for Artemis

Here are the two next to each other.

Here are the backs of the crowns. They overlap each other so that when you put them on the tension will hold them in place.

I also finished this today. It is a knife made from forged stainless steel.

Thor Update

2011-03-06T12:14:00.000-08:00

Its been a while since I posted anything about my Thor costume so here it is. I only get to work on it during the weekend so the going has been slow but it has been going. The first image is of the shirt when I bend my arm so you can see what the sleeve looks like.

The main thing I have been working on are the pants and the boots. The pants are made out of a navy blue pleather and were made using an old pair of blue jeans as a pattern.

The boots are a pair of knee high costume boots that I have made covers for. They velcro up the side to they are easy to remove and put on.

Just so I could see what it was like, here is a picture of me with a vest on so we can get an idea of what it might look like when its finished.

The Twin Gods: Part 2

2011-03-02T15:50:00.000-08:00

In January I posted about the crowns I was going to make for the twin Gods Artemis and Apollo. The crowns have been coming along and I felt it was high time I gave a good update of where they were so far. In the past week I have really made a lot of progress on them.

This first image shows the two crowns next to each other. The top one is Apollo's and the bottom Artemis'.

The two crowns are going to have these two different textures on them. Apollo's crown has a more linear texture to represent harsh sun light since he is the sun god. Artemis' crown has a round texture to represent moon light since she is the god of the moon. The crowns will also be plated in copper for Apollo's and tin for Artemis. I was originally going to go with silver and gold but tin and copper are both cheaper and closer to what the Greeks would have had.

The ends will also be different for each of the gods. Both gods were gods of the bow but Artemis was goddess of the hunt, so her crown is finished to look like it is the end of a bow. Apollo was god of music and credited with the invention of the Lyre so his crown is shaped like the end of a Lyre. Both will have a twisted wire running along one edge to stand for the bow string and both will have stones set into them. Tomorrow I hope to find the stones when I go out to do some shopping so hopefully next week I will be able to do another update and show you some of the shaping that will go into the crowns.

MSG Jewelry + Object Exhibition

2011-02-28T19:30:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow I am mailing off my entry for the 2011 Jewelry + Object Exhibition. This is an exhibition being held by the Michigan Silversmiths Guild over the summer. I am submitting two pieces to this show, hopefully at least one of them will get in. The first one I have is my Bladed Ring.

The ring band is made out of forged sterling silver. I added a sterling silver wire and the chiseled groves to add some decoration to it.

The second piece I'm submitting is my sterling silver Tea Strainer. The advanced students at Wayne State were assigned to make a tea strainer as their first project of the semester. As a Grad Student I didn't have to do the project but I decided to do it anyway.

It consists of a cone with three levels of holes drilled in the base. The cone is one piece of twisted wire so that it will spin up and down the wire like a screw and nut. Once the cone is screwed all the way down, it will lock in place on the base. The bottom of the base is acid etched with a wood grain texture. The fun thing about this piece is that the ring at the top fits as a ring to wear so it will function as a piece of art jewelry.

Knightsbridge Antique Center

2011-02-23T14:33:00.000-08:00

Last sunday we went to another antique store. Knightsbridge Antique Center in Northville is a pretty nice one. It was the second time at this store and I want to go again. The drive isn't that bad and we found out it is a five minute drive from a friends apartment so we get to visit him when we go. Here are some of the things we saw this trip.

This spatula was pretty interesting because if you squeeze the handle, the face turns to the side so you don't have to flip it over.

I ended up buying this cobblers stand. It came with the stand and five shoe mounts and was only $15. Normally you see the stand with one shoe for twice that. I have used the shoes for sculptures but I am actually going to use this set to make my own boots.

This seemed to be some kind of traveling apothecary case at first glance, but I think it was used for testing the PH Balance of water. The cool thing was one of the bottles was labeled poison.

Silver Sheet

2011-02-16T15:38:00.000-08:00

Today I have done a bit more work for my handcuff ring. The stone setting is close to being done now.

I also took some of the silver ingots I had made at home and re-cast them so that they can be worked. I found out that the way I did the pouring in the first place will result in fractures in the metal. Three of them have now been re-cast in a new and much better ingot mold.

The two larger ingots on the outside each weigh in at about 6.3 oz. One of those I have taken and started rolling out in a mill to create my own sheet metal. It will take a long time but I think it will be worth it when I don't have to spend money to go out and buy silver sheet.

Here you can see the sheet before I started rolling so you can get an idea of the size. Then you can see what I have managed to do so far next to another piece of about the same starting size.

New work and Finished work

2011-02-14T12:36:00.000-08:00

Some fun updates this week in the world of metalsmithing. First of all, I have finished my silver knife ring which I'm calling Self Defense.

I apologize for the image quality, I left my good camera at home so these were taken with my phone. It is a forged sterling silver ring with a knife blade. Instead of putting a handle on the knife, I bent the remaining stock into the ring blank and added some detail to it. It is made to be worn on the ring finger with the blade against your palm until needed, then you flip it around and the blade sticks out from your knuckles. Of course your not actually supposed to use the things let alone wear it but it was fun to work on.

The new work is yet another ring, this one will be cast silver in the shape of an old set of figure eight hand cuffs from the 1850's. A large glass emerald will be set in place on the top. Its design is to be worn on two fingers and will be uncomfortable due to its size and the fact that you cannot separate your fingers. This one if a more conceptual piece representing how in todays society, a large amount of the population are almost prisoners to the concept of personal wealth.

In other news, today I spoke to a member of a specific stage combat team I know about making a hammer for his character to carry around. It will be a prop and not an actual weapon so I have some room to work with the design of it. The cool thing is that this marks my first professional prop making job. Once I get some sketches made up he will be looking at them to see what he wants and then I will posting them for you all to see.

Two Years

2011-02-12T18:01:00.000-08:00

So this week was Melanie's and mine 2 year anniversary. We celebrated by doing something we both really like to do, antique shopping. We ended up going to two places, the first was R and J Needful Things in Flint. We have been there before but they always have something new there. Here are some of the things we saw there that were kind of interesting.

This odd thing is a trivet, don't really know what the shape was for but it was cool.

Thought these were cool, the second is a miners lamp from before the light bulb.

The Roman is life size, we didn't really know what to make of that, there was also an Indian but Blogger wouldn't let me load it for some reason.

The second store we went to was out in the middle of nowhere but it was very cool. We will be going back sometime because there are four more like it in the same area. This place had a lot of nice stuff and they price it to move instead of make a ton of money. Most of the price tags were still very high but they had a lot that we have seen at other places for half the price.

This was one of the coolest things this place had, it is a piano that had several other instruments built into it so that one person could be the entire band.

Problem Solving

2011-02-09T12:44:00.000-08:00

So I recently talked to Evan about the issues I had been having with my crown.

This is what it currently looks like. At first it looks pretty good but if you look closer you see all sorts of little bumps and divots in it. Those were from the process I used to shape the metal and I did not like the way it turned out. At Evan's suggestion I tried forming it using a piece of Micro Crystalline Wax. Some of you will know this as the brown wax used by most sculpture departments to make their models with.

You can see some of the dents in the block from where the metal was pushed into it. This wax worked great because it was rigid enough to form the metal but soft enough to allow it to move in the direction I wanted it to. Before I shaped the metal I textured it using some different hammers to get the different textures I wanted.

These are the two different textures that will be on the crowns. The top one, which is more linear and rough is for Apollo while the second is for Artemis. Hopefully I will be able to get to work on the actual pieces soon now that I have this figured out.

Works in Process

2011-02-07T12:11:00.000-08:00

Not much has been completed recently but there has been a lot of experimenting and testing. My current list of projects in progress is as follows:

Thor Costume
Thor's Hammer
Twin Crowns
Silver Ring Knife
Silver Tea Strainer

I am almost done assembling the sleeves for Thor, I have started doing some tests for making his hammer, I am starting the finish for a knife I started last spring so that might be done today. The tea strainer is a new one that I am starting and will do a post on soon.

The crowns are the big issue. I started shaping the prototype I made and I am not liking how it is coming out so far. This week I am going to do some tests to see about texturing it instead of trying to shape it. So I have some more to look at, some things to think through, and some things to take off the table and restart.

Thor

2011-01-31T06:56:00.001-08:00

The other day I started working on my Thor costume for the movie release. The biggest problem I saw was how to do the arms. I know some people here did it with textured fabric or the metal mesh fabric but I did it another way. At fabric.com they had a silver vinyl that I thought would work nicely so I ordered three yards of it and used it to make my own fabric.

I cut two yards worth of 3/4" strips and wove them into this sheat.

The back is covered in a layer of duct tape to help hold it together and each piece of the arm pattern will be straight and zigzag stitched to help hold it together at the edges.

So with this I am cutting out pieces for the arms and a small shoulder piece that will be stitched to a t-shirt. Then the vest will be worn over it and it will look as it I have a full shirt on underneath.

Here is a side by side with an image from the movie and my sleeve.

Prototyping

2011-01-26T14:48:00.000-08:00

This week I have been working on a prototype for the twin crowns. This one is being made out of copper so i don't have to worry too much about screwing it up.

You can see the number of stages I went through to figure out the size for it. On the left you will see the first image i drew to scale, going to the right are all the paper mock ups i made to see what worked best.

Next I glues the pattern to the copper and cut out the individual pieces so that I could solder them together into a single piece.

Here I have started to solder the first joint together. I was attempting to get some of the shaping done first since the pieces will overlap but that then caused problems with the soldering process.

Here is the entire crown, all soldered together. I am now able to start the forming process which will bent it around the shape of the head as well as slightly curve it to give it some form and structure.

Confusion 2011 update

2011-01-24T15:45:00.000-08:00

This was just posted, During the room parties we sang to one of the con goes I know dressed as Caesar for the roman room party. Unfortunately this is not complete because we sang the entire song to him.

Confusion 2011

2011-01-24T13:27:00.000-08:00

This past weekend was Confusion 2011 at the Troy Marriott Hotel. This made my third visit for this particular con. This one was a lot of fun for one reason. I took my friends Kevin and Justin along with me. Normally I enter the Masquerade contest at these things, well this time I did it a bit different. Instead of going for the workman ship aspect, I went for presentation. Justin and I spent the entire weekend walking around as the Blues Brothers. We put up posters that I had photoshopped and we just acted strange the entire time.

It was a lot of fun. For the Masquerade we performed Sweet Home Chicago on stage. We were lip-syncing but knew the dance moves and everything. It helps that we are close to the size of our roles.

The above video is of the masquerade performance itself. It was good enough to win us Best in Show and get us free passes to next years con. Justin and I were a little surprised and pleased to find someone we wanted a picture with when we came out of the contest room. We both just looked at him and thought it was appropriate since he kind of looked like Cab Calloway.

Earlier in the day we had done another song performance to practice but we did it in the hallway outside of the panel rooms.

Later in the evening, along with Kevin, we did do some live performances for people during all the parties which included us singing "You lost the Loving Feeling" to a few of my friends. There is a video of one of those performances out there but I have to get it still, but rest assured that once I have it, it will be up.

The Twin Gods

2011-01-14T09:31:00.000-08:00

In Greek mythology, there are twin gods names Artemis and Apollo. Artemis, shown on the right, is the goddess of the hunt and moon. Usually depicted with a bow and in the process of hunting, Artemis was a much loved goddess. If someone was going to hunting, they would pray to Artemis in hopes that she made their hunt prosperous. She was also associated with young women, virginity, and child birth. She was sometimes referred to as the Maiden Goddess, or the Virgin Goddess.

Her twin brother Apollo, shown on the left, was the god of music and the sun. As with any greek deity, they were the patron gods of many things. Along with the sun and music, Apollo was known for poetry, light, medicine, and oracles. Anyone who has read any greek mythology would have heard of the Oracle of Deplhi, also known as the Oracle of Apollo. People would come to her for answers and she would name prophecies that were told to her by Apollo.

A way that these two were similar is that they were both gods of the bow. Both were said to have had a hand in it creation and in teaching man how to use it. They were opposites, Apollo the sun and Artemis the moon. That is why i want the crowns I design for these two to be alike, yet different.

The two pieces shown here will both be made out of Silver. The upper crown, for Artemis, will have a smooth hammered texture to it with Moon Stones set into the four circles that are at the tips of the spirals. The edge will have braided or twisted wire to represent the bow string that she uses. In contrast, her brothers crown will have a rough linear hammered finish to it. The different finishes represent the soft moonlight, and the harsh sunlight. Apollo's crown will have Sun Drops set in it instead of the Moon Stones, though it too will have the braided wire. The real difference will be that Apollo's crown is going to be electroplated so that there will be a thin layer of gold on the surface. That way, not only will the texture represent the different gods but the color of the metal itself will represent them. Hopefully I will be going into production within the next week or so, so keep an eye out for progress updates.

Studio and Old Stuff

2011-01-12T12:42:00.000-08:00

Recently I have been doing more talking then anything and have put up very few images. Today's blog will change that. What follows are images from the last month, the antiques stores we have been too, some of the stuff I have seen and then some pictures of my studio space at Wayne.

An old, cast iron cash register

This thing was wood and about a foot and a half long but it was cool

You can't tell here but this barber chair is bright pink

This is a filing cabinet, the drawer hinges up then pushes in

Might be hard to tell but that is Spock in binary

A strength testing game from the 20's

A cool old safe

I loved this dealer, an entire booth of old tools for me to look through

Once again we found Jer

This place was interesting, from the road it looked small and not that good so we never went in, then we find out that they have a back store room that is open and this is what it was like. Nothing priced, most of it was spare parts but they said everything was for sale.

This is the upper level student space at wayne, each of the curtained cubicles has two students in it.

Mine is one of two that only has one, haha

The end is near

2011-01-10T14:45:00.000-08:00

There are only a few hours till the end of my first day. Thus far it has gone fine. I managed to get some work done this morning before class, and the class itself went fine. We did a shop your and safety lecture fallowed up by the basic sawing demo and workshop. A few of the students got it with no problem at all and a few needed a bit more help then the rest but all in all it went very good. In my mind there is already one student that will probably be towards the top of the class. He stayed late to finish the sample piece and he took a high school jewelry course so he has some understanding of this stuff.

After the class was over I went through some of the welding supplies to see what we had and what we needed to order. Then evan and I moved some lockers around and did some cleaning so that i now have some studio space to myself. Once it all gets set up there will be a picture of it so that the few people that actually read this will know what I'm referring to in the future. On top of all that I figured out that the history course I'm in has no book to buy, everything I will need to read is online.

So to close it up for today, stay tuned and I will start to talk about the projects that I am going to be working on this semester. As a little preview, there will be at least two crown made from the God Series. Along with those two projects I will put up a picture of the one finished crown. Until next time.

On the edge of change

2011-01-09T17:08:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow my world is going to change, hopefully for the better. At about 9am I will be going in for my first day at Wayne state. I'll have a little over an hour to get stuff set up and pick up my class books before the Intro to Jewelery and Metalsmithing class. It will be my first experience teaching a college level course. The rest of the day will be spent around the studio until about 9pm. That will be my life for Mondays and Tuesdays for the duration of this semester. Hopefully I will be able to make some nice pieces and learn some new techniques. Make sure you stick around and check out what I'm up too.

A day at Wayne

2011-01-03T14:55:00.000-08:00

Today was spent at Wayne State University in an attempt to get registered for classes. As of this morning I still had not received anything from school saying that I had been accepted. The big issue was that open registration for classes started today. So Andrew took me down and showed me around campus on our way to the Graduate Admissions Office. Once we got there and explained everything to them it turned out that they were still waiting for departmental approval. So, we went over to the Art Department and spoke to someone there. Apparently, they had sent the approval over to the Grad Office in November. That means it got lost somewhere in transit across campus.

A phone was picked up, a call was made, and then a fax was sent. I got some information about what classes to sign up for and a copy of the Graduate Student Handbook. They said it might take some time for the new account to be set up so to try to log in latter in the day. So I did just that, but I still couldn't get logged in. After a call to the help desk it turns out that the login information I was given wad an expression date with it and had already expired. They finally got it reset and I was able to log in and start to register for classes. I still have to make another call tomorrow to finish registering as well as going down there in person to have my first GTA meeting with Evan. Hopefully tomorrow will go a bit smoother then today did.

A New Year

2010-12-29T17:43:00.000-08:00

So the holidays have passed and a new year is approaching. I have left my job at Jo Ann Fabrics and will stating as a Graduate Teaching Assistant in under a weeks time. There are going to be new and exciting things going on this year so keep your eyes open for updates.

Last Minute Sale

2010-12-16T07:15:00.000-08:00

Twas a few weeks before Christmas and all through the web, people were shopping, wondering what they should buy. The shopping carts were filled with the most of care, with hopes that they soon would be there. Everyone was worried that the mail would go slow, while a big christmas snow store was beginning to blow. With Melanie in her sweeter and I in my hoody, we settled down for a nice hot drink, when up in my head a light started to blink. I sprang from the couch with a thought in my head. To the computer I sprang with great speed, opened the screen and turned on the power. And what was waiting right on the screen, it was Etsy with lots to bring.

Hope you all enjoyed that, I am not going to try and re-write the hole thing. The is the announcement for my Etsy Seasonal sale. With some new additions to the site I have decided to give their promotional coupons a try. For the next week I am having a 25% off sale at my Etsy shop. Go take a look and she what there is, if you chose to buy anything the coupon code is SEASONAL25. There should be a place to put it in the checkout window. All the prices listed on the site are the full price of the piece so the 25% will come off of that. The sale will be over at Midnight next Thursday. Have a Merry Christmas and hope everyone stays safe.

Again the coupon code is SEASONAL25

Exciting News

2010-12-08T12:29:00.000-08:00

Now that it is official I can start to tell you about the new development. Today I filled out the paperwork that made me the newest Graduate Teaching Assistant at Wayne State University. From January to May I will be working at Wayne in the Metals Department to help teach and instruct the undergrad students. Getting this position goes right along with being accepted into the Masters of Arts program. After some time in the MA program I will be able to transfer in to the MFA and finish my degree. Its taken some time to get here but here I am. Now that I am in I want to thank all those that helped support me and get me through this.

A Little Update

2010-12-01T13:19:00.000-08:00

I put a picture up earlier today and said it looked like Jer. For those that don't know, here is a comparison.

Antique Trip

2010-12-01T11:56:00.000-08:00

Almost a month ago, Melanie and I went down to the Heart of Ohio Antique Center for her birthday. The place is huge. Thats about all there is to say, absolutely huge. While there we saw some very interesting things and I did take some pictures of them. The first three images are of an old baseball arcade game from the mid 20's.

This one was a steel letter box that I thought looked very cool. I would like to try and make one of these but maybe a bit larger so it could fit more in it.

These next ones are steel heater grates for your home. These were probably taken out of 1930's hotels from how ornate they are.

This was the booth I spent the most time in, an entire shelf of hammers. There were quite a few I wanted but only got one to take home with me.

Found this in their outside section, it is a 1880's forge, if it was in better condition and didn't cost as much it would have been coming home with me. It did give me some idea though on how to make mine.

An old fireplace front.

This looked like it was made out of an erector set but it was a single unit, standing about 3 1/2 to 4 feet tall. At one point it was attached to a motor so it would rotate. If you can't tell its a ferris wheel.

This is Jer, enough said to those that know him.

Goings on

2010-11-29T17:33:00.000-08:00

Recently there has been a lot of stuff going on around here. First of all I am still waiting for official word from Wayne State. I have been accepted into the MA Program but have not yet received any paperwork from them. There is more to do with school but I am going to wait until I get the official word to talk about it because it is very exciting. I have several project in the workings, including making some badges for Penguicon and finishing up two different forges. This week, I have also put in my notice at work so at the end of the month I will have more time to divot to school and finishing up projects. Some time in the near future I will also be doing some casting workshops and demos with i3 Detroit, so keep an eye out for when those are going to take place.

Something I did for fun recently was going to the midnight showing of Harry Potter at the Star Great Lakes. I did of course go in costume as Mad Eye Moody. While there I had close to 2 dozen pictures taken and many comments ranging from "amazing" to "you just made my night." I unfortunately did not manage to get a picture of the costume while I was wearing it. Rest assured that I will be putting it back on for a convention and I will get a picture then. Here is a test shot from my first attempt at the make up, the final makeup job was a lot better.

Happy Turkey Day

2010-11-25T21:12:00.000-08:00

Happy Thanksgiving everyone out there. Hope everything is going good for you and your family. This is a quick post due to the fact that I still work retail and have to work the Black Friday sale at Jo-Anns. Just wanted to let everyone know that the 15% off sale is still going on on my Etsy store. The listed prices are already marked down so don't expect any further discounts. The sale will be going on till Monday evening so act while you still can. Next week I should have some more posts with updates on several of the projects I'm working on.

Ron Reil Burner Continued

2010-11-15T19:39:00.000-08:00

A while ago I did a post on my attempt to build a Ron Reil burner to build my own Blacksmith Forge. Today I managed to finish the burner and test how it worked. Soon I will be able to build the actual forge and assemble the the entire unit.

Seasonal Sale

2010-11-09T06:17:00.000-08:00

Sorry for being away so long. I recently dropped my computer and have been getting all my documents and everything transferred to the new Hard Drive. I have several new projects in the pipeline and some discussions with people that will lead to some fun stuff to talk about in the future. For today though, I am announcing my first ever Seasonal Sale. I have gone through my Etsy shop and made everything 15% off. The prices that are listed are the lowered price so no adjusting will have to be made to the bill. Hopefully I will be able to list some more stuff soon and those will also be on sale. I'm still not sure how long it will be on sale for but it will be for at least a week so come see what I have.

Designs and Fun

2010-10-03T11:42:00.000-07:00

So this weekend I took Melanie camping for the first time. It went well but could have been a lot better so we are going to plan another trip earlier in the year for next time. Since our trip was cut short we did some shopping at antique stores and flea markets so that it was still a fun weekend. At the last one e went to I found an old pair of Optometry test frames that date to the 1890's.

The only thing that is wrong with them is that they are missing an earpiece which I can fix. I'm also going to find some lenses to go in them so i can actually use them.

Last time I blogged I talked about my new God Series as I call it. Here is the concept art for the one crown that I am currently working on. The first image was the original sketch, then the second is the detailed rendering.

Gods Abundent

2010-09-23T09:28:00.000-07:00

This morning I applied for the Detroit Urban Craft Fair run by Handmade Detroit. It will be my first solo show if I manage to get in and it will help me move Drummer Metal Crafts into a full business.

In other news, I've decided to start talking about a new series of work I have been developing for school. I call this one the God Series and it will consist of 13 pieces. They will all be crowns or headgear of some form. Each one will be designed and tailored to represent one of the 13 Olympian Gods. I am currently working on the crown for Demeter, the goddess of the harvest. My next post will have pictures of he design steps and what I have done so far. I have four or five of them designed already but for now I'm just trying to get the one done so I can take pictures for my portfolio that will be due in the beginning of November. Hopefully I will have it done by then.

DIY Fair is done

2010-09-19T19:56:00.000-07:00

The Fair is over and were all packed up and back at home. It went well but not quite as well as we had of hoped for. The big items for me were defiantly the Pewter Cuffs, I sold every one I had made. Probably the best part was meeting another couple that had a booth at the fair. They are another couple that made art out of porcelain and cast pewter, the thing I really found interesting is that they live about half a mile away from Melanie. We spent quite a bit of time talking and were going to get together to see how each other do their work. Maybe we'll be able to do some work together and help figure some stuff out.

Day Two at the DIY Fair

2010-09-19T11:49:00.000-07:00

Day two had been a little bit slower it seamed. I hadn't had a lot of sales though I had someone ask if I taught classes and an elementary school teacher asked if I would come in and talk to her art classes about metalworking. The sales started to pick up a bit after 1 pm and then a lady wanted two of the pewter cuffs made. Instead of doing it behind the table I moved the vise and anvil out in front of the tent and a crowd gathered around to see what I was doing. In the process of doing that, another lady decided to have one made so those bracelets have defiantly become my hit product of the show.

Day one update

2010-09-18T16:50:00.000-07:00

Day one of the DIY Fair will come to close in a little over an hour. It has gone pretty good so far, it was slow in the beginning due to the rain but picked up a bit around 2 or 3 in the afternoon. Now that the dinner crowd is out and about it is picking up again. Probably my biggest hit has been my Forged Pewter Cuffs, you pick out what to have them say and I stamp them. People seem to really like the idea of having something custom made like that. Hopefully tomorrow will go better then today with the weather so more people will come out and buy stuff.

The Fair Begins

2010-09-18T10:20:00.000-07:00

Right now I am sitting in our booth at the DIY Street Fair listening to some good Rock music from the stage that is only about 40 yards away from the tent. Haven't had that many sells yet but the fair has only been going for a little over an hour. Lots of people have come by and looked, a few seamed interested in some of the stuff. There have been several dogs so far so it seams to be a pet friendly fair. Hope some of you can make it down here today but if not keep an eye on the blog and I will put up some updates. For now here are some pictures of what the booth looks like this time around.

Tomorrow is the day

2010-09-17T19:18:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow is the first day of the DIY Street Fair in Ferndale. We've managed to get everything ready and just need to get it into the van and moved over there. A few friends have already said they are going to come by and check it out but hopefully we'll see some more people around. The marketplace is going to be open from noon to 9 pm both Saturday and Sunday. The fair itself which has music and food will be open until 2 am. There will apparently be some of the venders that will be open till midnight for those who want to stay around later and do some shopping. Supposedly there will be wifi available at the fair so I hopefully will be able to make some updates as the fair progresses.

Three Days and Counting

2010-09-15T10:21:00.000-07:00

Three days and counting till the DIY Street Fair that were selling in. Should interesting to see how it goes. The fair is held in two parking lots that are divided by a street, at one end of this street there is a stage that will have live music so you can come and shop while being entertained. From what we have been able to figure out, Melanie and I are positioned in one of the tent that are actually in the street. The last few days have been spent getting some new work ready to go and so far I am very pleased with it. Last week I did a casting in Pewter and they came out very nice, I actually think it is one of the best castings I have done with this set up thus far.

One of the new pieces I have put together uses experimental casting where I put a copper washer in the bottom of the mold before I pored the Pewter. I did these almost a year ago but didn't have any clue what to do with them so they have just been sitting around.

DIY Fair and New Work

2010-09-09T09:23:00.000-07:00

Coming up on September 18th and 19th, Melanie and I are going to be displaying our work at the Ferndale DIY Street Fair.

It will be my second craft show so hopefully it will be go well for both of us. The fair is held in the parking lot behind the Woodward Avenue Brewery in Ferndale. It is basically at 9 mile and Woodward so come on down and have a look, there is a lot of handmade crafts and music. This fair we have a 10'x10' booth opposed to the 8' table at Maker Faire so we are able to have a lot more stuff to show.

To get ready for this show I have been making some show pieces with the pewter castings, they may be large and heavy but they are very flashy and pretty so hopefully they will pull some people into the booth to see what else there is. I have made four so far but have parts to make at least three more of them.

I have a few test pieces that I'm going to make one with where I cast the pewter on top of a copper washer so that it is imbedded in the pewter. The castings came out pretty well but I have to figure out how to drill and attach them to make them work the best so keep an eye out for that post.

Grad School

2010-09-01T08:46:00.000-07:00

So today marks the start of a new Semester for the students down at Wayne State University, and another round of application work for me. This morning I have submitted my on-line application with Wayne State for the MFA Metalsmithing program. Before I can submit everything else I need to do I have to do some printing and filling out of forms, as well as some new documentation of work and asking for letters. Hopefully I can manage to have all of this done in the next few weeks if not sooner. Tonight I am off to Wayne itself to sit in on the first class of the Metals students and to talk to the Professor in charge, Evan Larson. Hopefully everything goes well this time and I get accepted in tot he program.

New Casting

2010-08-13T19:14:00.000-07:00

It isn't much but with how much I liked the new pewter pieces I've made I am starting on making some more. Here are a few new casting I have done today for me to start playing around with. It will take me some time to get more work done due to the fact that the black disks were intended to be melted down in these. Since I now want to use them as pieces themselves I have to reduce my 5 pound bar of pewter into more manageable bars. Thankfully I picked up that Ingot mold for the silver that seams to be working just fine for this. Hopefully in the next few days I should have some more work to post about.

Pewter Work

2010-08-11T13:20:00.000-07:00

So the other day I started experimenting with pewter a bit more. I made two pieces using cast pewter pieces that I think came out nicely. The first of which is a simple pewter disc about an inch round on a simple black cord that can be adjusted to the length you need.

The second uses two of the above discs as well as two other pewter castings. The other two are made from a mold from two of the beads that Melanie from Earthenwood Studios makes.

New Etsy Posts

2010-08-10T18:55:00.000-07:00

So I've managed to put some more stuff up on Etsy the past few days and still have a lot to go. As promised here are some pics of the set up we used at Maker Faire and the new work that I've been doing. Soon I'll put up some pictures of the stuff that I just started making today that I think is very interesting

Quick Update

2010-08-06T13:11:00.000-07:00

Now that the Maker Faire is over, Melanie and I are starting to plan for our next show that we hope to be in in September. Today I managed to list three new bracelets on my Etsy so take a look at it. More will be following in the next few days so keep your eyes open on both the blog and the store. Next time I post I'll put up photos of the set up we had for the faire, and yes I am spelling it that was on purpose to any that were wondering.

Maker Fair After-Math

2010-08-01T17:33:00.000-07:00

Maker Faire 2010 is now over. I think in all it was a major hit and hope that it will be coming back again next year. For my first craft show I think it went pretty well, I found out about the type of things that people were interested in and in what they didn't really want. In the next few days I will have pictures up of the table display we used and of the new work that I had for the show. Over the next few days I will also be listing a lot of stuff on both my Etsy and my Big Cartel site so take a look at what goes up. Two of the big things that went on there did end up being the Life Sized games of Mouse Trap and the Liquid Nitrogen Ice Cream. The game went on several times a day and instead of dropping a trap, it dropped a safe on top of an old van. It was quite a contraption to see.

Here is a view of the game where you can see the bath tub that they put up on top of a pole.

Here are my friends Jer and Scott making Butter Scotch Ice Cream.

Maker Fair

2010-07-31T04:40:00.001-07:00

Maker Fair 2010 starts today. Melanie and I went last night to get out stuff set up and took a look around the place to se what there would be. There is a lot. Everything from a tent where you can learn electrical soldering to a life sized game of Mouse Trap. Thats right, you heard me LIFE SIZED. The bathtub on the pole is a real claw foot bath tub. Is looks to be an interesting and fun weekend so come on down to the Henry Ford Museum and take a look.

Made it to the Craft Blog

2010-07-24T13:41:00.000-07:00

So this morning I got a text message from Melanie telling me to go check out craftzine.com because we were on it. It is a craft blog and they are doing highlights on artists that are going to be at Maker Fair this weekend. So away I went and now I'm really psyched about this because we got onto a blog like that. So everyone go take a look at the blog and see what kind of people are going to be there this weekend.

Getting Ready

2010-07-19T14:08:00.000-07:00

It has been a while since my last post so I figured it was about time for me to do something. I have spent the lat few weeks getting ready for the Maker Fair coming up at the end of the month. I am both excited and nervous since I don't know how I will do. I have been making as much stuff as possible including bracelets, ear rings, and pins. I have even made a few of my castings into pendents to see how those will sell. The pictures below are of some of the displays I've been working on but you will have to forgive the quality since they were taken with my phone.

Relay For Life Garage Sale

2010-06-17T07:13:00.000-07:00

So this weekend Thursday thru Saturday we are having a garage sale. The proceeds go to the American Cancer Society and the Relay for Life so come on by and do some shopping. For an idea of the size here are some pictures of our set up.

If you want to come by and you are in the Metro-Detroit area it is at

3614 Hollenshade dr
Rochester Hills, MI
48306

Ingots

2010-06-15T07:34:00.000-07:00

A little over a week ago I went to the local supply company I use and picked up an Ingot Mold. I made the decision to get all my scrap silver out of their bins and melt it down to a more usable state. I do have to say though that most of the scrap was Melanie's from all the years a beading she has done. It took me a while but I managed to get it all melted down.
This is the result I got, just under 3 pounds of sterling silver bar stock. For those that don't know, silver is priced by the ounce and is currently going for around $18 an ounce. If you do the math I have about $840 of silver now. The ingot makes it into a more managable size and shape as well as outting it into a form that I can forge. After I was done with the poring I took one of the small bars and forged it out into a bracelet.

After about an hour and forty-five minutes I had the cuff formed, I then soldered one of my flying anvil castings to the surface of it. These pictures are from before it was cleaned up in the tumbler but even in this state I think it turned out pretty nice.

Ron Reil Burner

2010-06-08T16:13:00.000-07:00

Almost 9 months ago I found instructions on how to build a propane powered forge. It consists of two main parts, the forge itself and the burner. The forge is built out of fire bricks which are commonly used for ceramics, they are similar to pumas in texture but are the size of regular building bricks. They are used because they can stand up to the intense heat generated by the burner. The burner that I am constructing is called the Ron Reil Burner, named for the man that designed it. The nice thing about it is that it can be built out of plumbing supplies found at Home Depot or Lowes.

Above are most of the parts used in building the burner, a few of them are already assembled in the picture because they required no modification.

The brass tube is what is actually attached to the propane line. The other end is capped off and the gas leaks out of the small hole that I drilled in the center.
Holes are then drilled into the black steel reduction bell and you fit the brass tube into the holes so the pilot hole points out the smaller end of the bell. The use of black steel is crucial because galvanized gives off toxic fumes when heated. Set screws are used to keep the pilot tube pointing in the correct direction.
When fully assembled the burner will look something like this. Mine is not yet finished so I was not able to fire it up and test it. The gas will collect in the bell and travel down the tube to come out the far end. That end needs to flared so that it will create a larger and hotter flame, this flaring I have not done yet. The back end is left open so that air can flow through it and help increase the heat that is generated.
Here is the burner with the propane hose and regulator attached to it. The entire assembly shown here coast around $40 to assemble, if you have an old propane bbq grill you can get the regulator off of it will reduce the coast to about $25. What is really nice about this design is how versatile it is. I am building it to use in the firebrick forge, but down the line I can also use it in constructing a smelting furnace so that I can do large castings in bronze or aluminum. I can also attach several of them together to create a longer forge that can be used for heating longer pieces of steel such as sword blades.