Emerald Waves

[Ed McDonnell]

Another Cast Carved Core that I'm calling Emerald Waves (for what I hope are obvious reasons).

I had originally intended to use a black core for this pen, but the DOL and I had a disagreement on where the emerald waves were going to be placed and those black cores found their way to the circular file. As I was walking to the circular file, I noticed what I thought was a set of black cores in my "didn't quite work out" tray. I didn't remember why they ended up in the tray so I grabbed them and engraved them.

After spending a couple days making the pen (turn, engrave, inlay cold cast aluminum, turn, engrave, inlay emerald PR, turn, cast in clear PR), imagine my surprise as I polished the blanks and found out that my black core was actually....well, I'm not sure what color it is. It depends on the lighting and changes from a smokey grey to a dark translucent forest green. I think it looks pretty good...except when I think it doesn't. I'm not sure what to think about it, but I am sure that I think I would have been a lot happier if the core had been black like I intended.

All C&C welcome.




Ed

 

[BRobbins629]

Looks great Ed.

 

[skiprat]

Well I always love a dark green pen and this really rocks my boat !! Very cool result. :wink::good::good::good:
Forgive my ignorance, but could you expand a bit on your 'Cast Carved Core' and 'Inlayed Cold Cast Aluminium' processes please? I'm struggling to understand what you mean. Also, where or what was engraved?

 

[Ed McDonnell]

Well I always love a dark green pen and this really rocks my boat !! Very cool result. :wink::good::good::good:
Forgive my ignorance, but could you expand a bit on your 'Cast Carved Core' and 'Inlayed Cold Cast Aluminium' processes please? I'm struggling to understand what you mean. Also, where or what was engraved?

Cold cast metal is a technique typically used by sculptors to achieve the look of cast metal at a fraction of the cost. I find it useful for doing metal inlays on curved surfaces. Here's a link to a pdf that give a good overview:

http://www.douglasandsturgess.com/PDFs/Cold-Casting-Metal-Powders-DS.pdf

An alternative technique to this is to fill the engraved area with metal and saturate with CA. I don't find the results with CA as satisfactory as with PR.

Carved Cast Core = A small diameter resin cylinder (the core) with a design engraved and colored using various mediums (aka carved) that is cast in clear resin as a final step.

In the example just posted the process was:

1) Using my DOL (digital ornamental lathe), engrave the core with the thin outer bands that will be filled with aluminum.
2) Move the project to my wood lathe. Fill the engraving with aluminum.
3) Turn the core back to size on the lathe, removing any excess aluminum fill.
4) Move the project back to the DOL. Engrave the core with the thicker bands that will be filled with emerald PR.
5) Move the project back to the wood lathe. Fill the engraving with emerald PR.
6) Turn the core back to size and polish on the lathe.
7) Cast the polished core in clear PR.
8) Decide on a pen and turn to size needed on the lathe.

Ed

 

[ironman123]

That is nice Ed but I agree that it would look great in black.

Ray