Foray into 3D PMC Mould Making

In 2008 I took a fabulous Precious Metal Clay Workshop with Rose Marie Christison in South Denver, Colorado who conducts these workshops in her own studio. I would highly recommend doing a course with her to get a solid knowledge and confidence for working with PMC. She teaches more than just pmc, have a look on her website is www.rosiesriginals.com

This article is my discovery of how to create a precious metal clay mould for an organic odd shaped item; mine being the stick that is left after the palm seeds have fallen off. This will not cover how to use Precious Metal Clay, rather how to test your moulds to ensure the desired effect is reached before destroying clay!

As with everything, have your work station set up neat with all items you will require to make the process easy. Spend the time getting to know every tool, chemical and rehearse the order before hand. Also, when creating the two halves, you want them to overlap and have some quirky ridges so the halves won't slide around when you are trying to mould the precious metal clay.

Items required:

2 part silicon quick and cold temp setting putty
Unusual organic found object
Ounce/Gram Scales (if you wish to be precise)
Olive Oil
Plastic Wrap
Clay, plasticine, etc (children's clay/dough of any sort that results in a smooth surface will suffice)
Ruler or flat hard object

Create First Half of Mould

Read your compound instructions carefully and don't throw them away like I did! There will be a set "mixing time" and then the compound will start setting - be very aware of this and do a few test balls first while watching a second hand on a clock to know how the compound works.

At first I was having trouble as the mould compound was setting looking like a kitchen sponge, which made my mould rough and lost a lot of detail. The sponge look can result for a few reasons
a) the two parts are NOT very close in amount (weigh them!)
b) OR your mould compound is too old and has gone off (who would have thought rubber can have a shelf life!)
c) OR You are mixing the two parts for too long and the compound is trying to set
d) OR each part is not at its optimal temperature for use
e) or a mixture of all 4 reasons.

Mine was a mix of reasons a, c and e so after some more test runs I figured out that I couldn't mix past 20 seconds, had to warm up the separate parts for a while and "eyeballing" the amounts didn't work for me.

After your mould compound is mixed, lay it out into a nice long half circle that is deeper than your object. Carefully press the found object in HALF WAY INTO THE MOULD. Using a flat plastic ruler can help press the object evenly into the moulding compound. You have one chance to get it right and cannot fiddle with the object while the mould is setting so resist the urge to lift the object out right away.

Lightly press a finger nail into the base of the mould to test the setting process. The mould is set when the fingernail mark no longer stays in the mould. After the mould is set you can take out the found object - be careful if it is a dry stick so that it doesn't break making the second half of casting difficult.

Cast the Top Half of the Mould

Lay a single small sheet of plastic wrap (Saran Wrap) entirely over the bottom half of the mould. This will prevent the second mould section sticking to the bottom half. (I learned the hard way.)


Carefully put the found object back into the bottom half of the mould until it sits snugly in place.

Mix more compound together than for the bottom half and place over the object so:
a) completely covers found object without gaps
b) top half slightly overlaps the bottom edges of the bottom half of the mould

Once the top half is squarely seated, leave it alone until the mould is completely set.

Ensure that top half will "lock" down onto bottom half with the overlapping portions so that the mould will not slide when casting the pmc. If not, recast the top half.


Test the Mould

COAT ALL PARTS OF THE MOULD WITH OLIVE OIL! This will keep any clay from sticking to your mould.

Testing the mould with a cheap clay, plastacine, polymer clay or even playdough (as I used here) lets you know if you are happy with the mould detail of the found object without wasting precious metal clay. It also will give you an idea of the volume of pmc required with minimal wastage.

You can see that I did not coat the mould with olive oil before squishing the test clay. Your clay can stick to the mould if not coated, ruining the casting.

I rolled the clay into a little round strip which was a little bigger than the original section of stick and pressed it into half of the mould. In the photos to the right you can see how the top half of the mould has a little cap that will fit over one end of the bottom.


Press the two halfs together until firmly fitted together. Carefully lift out the test clay from both sides of the mould.


If you're happy with the results, clean the mould of any of the test clay, recoat with olive oil and go for it in Precious Metal Clay!

Planning Your Work with Drawings

As I was working on photos for the butterfly post, I got to thinking how much I am beginning to rely on drawings for pieces I am planning. I draw much like a 8 year old but the point is that I do get my ideas on paper which helps me plan how I will construct pieces.

I have begun to work on a doodle shorthand that is pretty much unique to me, as probably I am the only one who can make heads or tails of it but those doodles help remind me when I look back through my ideas notebook days or months later.

One of the biggest challenges I have found is how to get what is in my head down on paper as I am not an exact artist at best when it comes to paper and pencil.

First I thought about what I am trying to doodle. I know how to do geometric shapes and can even draw a fairly good circle when given a template and half an hour. But how do you notate a coiled spring, or a coiled, coiled spring (much less remember WHAT that referred to?).

I had a look at some of my existing wire worked pieces to see what kind of patterns are in them, then tried to represent them somehow in a quick way on paper with pencil. I've ended up, with a little practice and patience and a lot of balled up paper, with a fairly quick doodle shorthand that I can use to get down my ideas. You can even build up a "ME Shorthand" dictionary by printing photos of the wire worked sections and the unique doodle next to them that you use to represent those patterns. Just sit back and have fun playing, and allow yourself to be a little silly. My personal favourite doodle is the crazy lightening bolt notation I use to represent twisted wire coils as seen in the second photo row below.

I'm not sure if it is important for me to show you my own doodle, the samples below are fair examples, but the important thing is to take the time and play with what you can do at your own level of drawing expertise.

Below are a few pieces that I drew before actually constructing, and the final piece is pretty similar to the drawing.

ORBITAL




TWISTED 1



TWISTED 2




FILLIGREE BUTTERFLY





USE THE MUSE 11 BETTLE




UNFINISHED TURQUOISE NECKLACE


Leave comments if you would like me to put up my own notation dictionary.

Making a Filigree Butterfly

PLANNING STAGE

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I was asked to create a sturdy filigree butterfly with aquamarine and blue sapphire, and had no idea where to start but loved the idea of this challenge. The first step was to agree on a design with the client so we both understood what the dimensions and style would be when finished. I perused jewellery magazines from my collection (always save your old beading mags!) and found 3 variations to inspire doodles. Here is what I came up with and sent to the client.

HABRAS Disks for Polishing Metal jewellery after Pickling

The above photo is taken from the website: http://texadentalsupplies.com/resources/habras_discs1.jpg

The Muse is Revealed!

I know it's a little hard to see. I will see if I can get a bigger one soon. I've hand made a PMC stick that is a flower base. The cut up flower petals was the muse - used to be a circle pendant which I cut into 4 sections and - made into a flower. The flower part is a pin and the beetle is a pin so I have two separate pins here that work together.

I also used ndeble (mispelled I know) weave to make the purple calcyx for the flower.
The little story here is there is a beetle that lives on a special flower (hence the similarities in their patterns) with the seed pod.

My beetle pin with wings that echo the pattern on the shell pendant. The body is bead woven in peyote stitch like an amulet bag and the insides has clove oil so the beetle is a bit of clove smell. The shell part is bead embroidered with a little wire work for the antennae.
















I won an award on the Muse contest! Here is the website for the winner's page:
http://www.thebeadersmuse.com/winners2/

I was awarded the "handmade components" award for my pin. And I can finally post photos of my entry!

Good night!

Amanda

Abused Amused Muse

So I know it's been a while since my last post but I've been busy! One of the most exciting things I've done is join the contest "Use the Muse” hosted by the talented Scarlett Lanson, the Bead Maven, of the Beaders Muse website. The challenge to “Use the Muse” is to use beads from a preselected kit of which one element, the muse, is hidden from sight until it is Deadline Day to post entries. The rules enable the entrant to use as many or little beads from the kit but they must Use the Muse in order to be eligible to enter the contest. Use this link to see a photo of the Use the Muse kit and contest entry rules: http://www.thebeadersmuse.com/use-the-muse-contest2/.

So there are a bunch of us out there that know what the Muse is this year but we aren’t telling or showing! ‘Cause doing that gets you disqualified.

The kits are sponsored this year by Artbeads.com and Rainbows of Light with a gorgeous spectrum of peacock purples, blues and many sparkly Swarovski crystals and pearls. I just couldn’t resist these colours as they are all my favourites so why fight the battle.

When I received my kit in the mail I immediately had to have a fab play – so many possibilities! The Muse truly is stunning but me being me I had to abuse my Muse. The poor thing is lying in pieces trying to recover on my work bench (aka a Tupperware container next to the TV) as I can never leave things alone. So far I have used my coping saw and the DH’s bench drill on the Muse. I like doing things like this though – evil laughter.

So here are a few sneak peak sketches at what I have in mind. I’m thinking flowers and bugs. I don’t know why but those bugs keep haunting me (time to fumigate our house?) so bugs it is. So far I’m using seed bead embroidery as Right Angle Weave and Brick Stitch have both failed in what I want to achieve. By the end a bug will have a few different weaving techniques including embroidery and odd stitch peyote. Probably a few more too that I just don’t know what they are called.

I will also use some wire working skills on a flower, maybe some metal working skills depending on how frustrated I get. Certainly more embroidery and French wire floral techniques too.

And in the end I’ll probably end up with 2 long stranded necklaces on simple tiger tail. Who knows? I certainly can say that the Muse as struck my imagination, amused me, and been abused by me so far!

Hand Carved Lion Cross Pendant

I was approached via internet by a client to create this fantastic lion pendant in 3d relief sterling silver. The drawing is the client's own art work and created a big challenge for me given that I've usually done my wax carving from my own images. Well away we go!

I quickly decided to work on the head and the cross portions separately, so if I stuff up it's only half of the whole! I had to start on the head because that face fascinated me.

I started by producing a whole sheet of the left image in exact dimensions (2.5 inches x 1.5 inches) multiple times to use as line drawings on the wax tablet. Then I started by literally cutting the lines of the face through the paper onto the wax - with many images to start anew with once one image got too shredded.





Once I was satisfied with the line drawing emerging on the wax I started the difficult part - removing the wax that doesn't belong. I spent a lot of time (4 months!) doing this slowly, methodically and carefully to ensure I got it right the first time. Here is a first draft of the head. The sides were still about 3 mm thick (mouth being closer to 4 mm) and the client wanted the mane thinner. So more careful carving.




The best part of this carving wax is that it's opaque and, when held to light, you can compare the shades of green to see where it is thin or thick. Here is the final head carving held so the client could see how it was made thinner. The head is really cool at this point.




So the next task was to do the cross. Now given how complicated the head is, I was actually dreading the cross more because although it appears simple (all straight lines) I was more apprehensive about this shape because it demanded perfect hand control to achieve symmetry. To create the curves I used the bench drill and various bit sizes and then carved the points after this. I used a lot of line grids to help control the symmetry at this point. It then sat like this for over a month while I tried to figure out how I was going to make the points of the cross at a 45 degree angle meeting on the edge like a V, or a wedge. My technical minded husband gave me a good idea that worked a charm. Use the angled side of a plastic ruler as the slope there is about 45 degrees AND gives me a hard straight edge to use as a template! Eureka! After this point the pendant wax carving process went along very smoothly.


After getting everything done, I melted the join between the cross and the head to create this final wax carving mold for the casting company. One thing I've learned over the last few projects is that the more I make the wax nice and smooth, the more smooth my casting will be. So I used an old bedsheet to smooth away all scratches.




Here's the casting (after a bit of clean up) before I put the star sapphire in a bezel setting and finalised the bail.










And here is the final pendant compared to the original drawing again!

I'm really pleased with the end results and look forward now to other original works like this one!