Sunday, October 9, 2011

Ghost Rider

 Howdy! I've got a fun piece today! I found a lovely little agate from Montana over at Handleys. At first I was all ho hum, then I saw it: A cowboy riding through sage brush! So that what I did, and here's how.

First came designing the piece. Getting a decent cowboy silhouetteis one thing, getting it in the right proportion is another! It took me several tries, but i finally got my cowboy and horse the right size.

Next came making the piece. I switched over to a  new torch setup in the middle of making this. From acetylene/air with a big torch tip to oxy-propane with a MINI torch tip. Well, I had some trouble getting it hot enough to solder up right, but I kept trying and finally got it. yikes, though, what a nightmare!

So I got the bezel made and all ready to go, and drew on my little cowboy
  
 I cut him out

 I was careful in my sawing as I couldn't add metal if i screwed up! But he turned out okay
Now one thing i did take into consideration was the possibility of the back plate tarnishing. I am trying to mitigate that by creating a fine silver layer (using depletion guilting) under where the stone sits. We'll see...at the very least it makes the stone appear whiter.

 I set the agate in and it looks pretty darn good. One thing I didn't realize was the stone tapers off by a millimeter on one side! so to get it to fit into the piece I had to do a bit of resizing. Anyway, it looks pretty good. The camera didn't want to pick up on it, but you get the idea. he comes out pretty clearly in real life.

8 comments:

  1. What a cool piece! Sounds like you geg to work with all kinds of fun toys...I mean tools :)

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  2. What a fabulous piece and I loved reading about your process, thank you:)

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  3. Brilliant idea, I love it!

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  4. Fun indeed. I love the agate piece and how you totally transformed it to a magical tale. Thanks for the inspiration :D

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  5. That is so darn cool!!! I love it - Erika, you are so creative and your technique is awesome! Really nice job!

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  6. Wow, what a cool idea! I think your cowboy turned out great.

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  7. This is very cool! Looks like a lot of work... Such an interesting technique. So precise, I'm not sure I could have the patience! Really impressive.

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