Not on the Syllabus

My teacher did two unconventional things last night. First, Roger toasted and made me a tomato (one that he had grown in his garden no less) sandwich. It was delicious! Second, he asked me a few questions about my faith and without asking, right then and there proceeded to earnestly, quietly pray for me and my husband and children by name.

The room was simply still. It wasn't creepy, it wasn't for show. It was for real.

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When I got to class early last night, I arrived just in time to watch the glass class drawing hot stringers from a suspended, rebuilt kiln. The glass that was flowing and dropping (think about making hard candy strings over a hot fire) from 8' high was molten red as it left the hole in the kiln (1750 F) and jet black where it froze/cooled into raised, swirling knots on the board Roger manipulated up and down and all around. Piles of this black stringy glass were stashed everywhere until the kiln ran dry. It literally took 6 people to help Roger "dance".

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We received our first assignment. He cut us each a 3"X6" piece of brass, told us our design had to incorporate a donut shape (something that involves sawing from the inside; a piercing), a leaf shape and a bezel. Something like this:




As you can see, my design has the bezel smack in the center, and the leaf happens to also fulfill the donut shape requirement.

Sawing on this piece of brass tonight was very gratifying. I have NEVER been able to saw more than an inch without breaking a blade. It's why until now I've always preferred shears. With a perfectly tightened blade, Grandpa B's pillaged C-clamp and my new bench pen, I sailed through the metal. I even heard that "sawing sound" I thought I'd never hear from my own saw.

Turning a blade for a tight corner in a narrow passage is where most blades break. The idea is to saw with your right hand as you pivot the metal with the left hand. If you stop and try to turn the blade or the metal, the blade gets stuck or breaks.
Last night I did this whole thing, piercings and all with one blade! I know there were a lot of teaching factors which finally made sawing easy for me, but I think the biggest key was staying relaxed and letting the saw do the work.

It's much easier to saw the piercings out of the whole chunk of metal first. In other words, don't cut the outline first; there's less metal to hang onto if you do it first. After you cut the piercings, then cut the outline.

Roger also helped me plan the order in which to execute my design. Even if I had hours to think about it, I'm sure I would have missed something. Before I even touched the first piece with a saw, we made and set the bezel first. The bezel is the hole where my glass cabochon will sit. Fine silver, it is a very easy thing to melt when using hard solder atop a chunk of brass. Roger helped me demonstrate this for the class since I was the first one to the bezel step. After its acid bath I did the sawing.

The final step last night was to solder the cut out leaf and flower shape to the base using easy solder. Even though it was easy solder (melts at a lower temp than the hard solder, so that multiple solder jobs can be done without interrupting the prior soldering) it took forever to flash (what you see just before you remove the torch) and join. The join was finally accomplished by my instructor adding another torch to one side while I fired on the other. I got really scared the first solder job was going to botch; it was looking really hot, and flashing itself. Anyhow, it all held together.



This weekend I hope to saw the exterior shape of the base, and add other dimensional shape to the design.

I see what Roger meant when he said the "dumb" refrigerator magnet would teach us many of the basic skills we need to learn. I'll share more pictures of this "dumb"magnet as it comes together. I have a feeling this magnet will actually make it and stay on my refrigerator. If you know me, that's no small feat. Nothing ever stays on my black fridge for long.