2nd metals rotation

part 1

At the start we made test broaches using basic found objects. I chose to use a bottle cap from a beer. We did this to gain a basic understanding of the claws we can use to hold our piece together and the method of which we add our pins to the back of the broaches. As usual i struggled with the soldering portion of this and found i struggled with controlling the solder and couldn't let it flow to the places that I wanted it to.

part 2

We later went on to learning about enamelling metal. I really liked the end results you can get from this but found it very hard to get the patina completely flat as well as struggling with the thickness of the patina so most of mine ended up cracking but I am OK with this for it actually gave some very interesting results that I managed to adapt to make them look nice. I really like the patina method and intend to use it in my end product. I cannot see myself using it too often for I intend to go into large metals and it doesn't really seem possible to use patinas in this but if i ever go back to making small jewellery I will defiantly be using this technique.

part 3

During this we learnt about acid etching. This was extremely simple to grasp, the hardest part of this was getting the hang of ironing on the resist but other than that it was just a matter of leaving it in the acid and looking at the end result. I like the fact that you could use sharpie as well as the computer printed versions for it gave this a good amount of versatility and could end up saving me a lot of money. I found the acid etching good and time efficient for the results you can get. I would like to see if i could maybe use the acid etching as a guide for engraving.

part 4

During this part we learnt about patinas and the different effects they can give. I honestly disliked this method even though it is one of the only techniques I could use with large metals. I felt that the end result just ended up making the metal look worse. the only patina I can see myself using is the darkening one but that I would only use on my copper wire wraps for the copper is a bit gawky without it.

Evaluation

I enjoyed the metals rotation I felt that although I do not intend to do jewelery I could see my self inmplimenting some of the techniques into my future projects. I found that I really liked the enamaling I felt that I could get some really interesting and unique results. I was not the biggest fan of the patinas for I did not like the look that most of them gave the metal. I could see use in the darkening patina but other than that I felt that the majority of them just did not look nice and I can never really see my self using them often in the future. On the other hand my experimentation with wire wrapping was very fruitful and gave me a fairly wide range of Ideas for projects in the future. I would like to try and do a similar technique but with steel for I feel that it could yeild some really interesting results for detailed pieces I may make later on.

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