Today in The Workshop

I spent all evening wanting to get into the workshop yesterday to try out a few ideas I had so this morning I started and got two of the ideas running around in my head done. I am actually pretty happy with how they have turned out. As I'm still only getting used to my tools and being back at the bench Im expecting a few problems but until today I still hadn't broken a single saw blade (which is amazing for me I used to go through so many). I know I have to work a bit on my polishing still as I was used to using a huge polishing machine and doing it with a dremel is very different. But I'm getting there.

The first piece I made was a horseshoe. Its basic and simple but gave me a challenge with the saw to see how I would get on. The major problem I came across here is I drew the horseshoe freehand which looked ok until I had it cut out. I kept the lines pretty well but my drawing was a tad bit off but what horseshoe is perfectly symetrical? This piece is made of aluminium.

The second piece I made is actually made up of two different pendants both musical notes one in aluminium and one in copper. I love the look of aluminium (or silver) and copper together so this gave me  chance to make something using both. I love how it turned out. I love this piece now so I'm going to stick to the theme and try a few more pieces this week. As soon as it was finished I had so many ideas.

I am currently using aluminium instead of silver for the cost aspect. As these are just practice pieces and I'm just playing around in the workshop trying to find my style again it seems like the most cost effective thing to do. The last thing I need is to be worrying about having too much unusable scrap silver lying around. My next purchase will be some melting equipment so I will be able to reuse the scrap metal when I need it but right now I don't have this option.