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.

 Anyway, That's my coyboy!
http://www.etsy.com/listing/83692954/cowboy-western-silver-brooch-with

Pierceing and Sawing

A long time ago I made this sweet dog tag for my nephew:

I want to sell custom dogtags like this on my Etsy store, but I need another example piece...so I decided to do one. First I thought of doing a three tag set in old English script but it needed to be done in silver, and no garuntee it would sell. Somehow this morning I was inspired with the idea of a deer...So I found a photo of a stag, sketched it out and transfered it to copper. The process of piercing metal is simple enough, though the saw blade runs the risk of breaking so rather than turn the blade, the metal has to be moved while the blade continutes to go up and down at a 90 degree angle.

Sawing the metal

To start out one drills a hole, places the blade inside the hole, tightens the saw and blade, then cut away! Lets watch to see how my dogtag was created:

First Cut

Second cut, front leg

Third cut, back leg

Fouth, small detail of leg

Five, Ears

Six, Horns



Light polish, not done yet-still can see scratches!

I am happy to say with all that sawing I did not break a single saw blade. Some spots I was abkle to use files to clean up, other spots where too thing for that, so i used sandpaper in a saw frame. Finally, if that didn't work I used thread with tripoli polishing compound on it. I gave it a light polish, but I am hoping to put a green patina on the piece. Copper tends to stain, and isnt suitable to wearing next to the skin. But if i patina it and then seal it, it might be fine. At the very least I'll have one cool ass dogtag.

From humble beginnings

If you where to have a dog tag, what would you want on it? Initials, or an image?