Pulling my chain…

I went to one of my favourite Cardiff haunts the other week, the Pump House, purveyors of antiques and general emporium of miscellany. I was actually looking for a brass escutcheon for a Victorian writing slope that I’m restoring, and struck lucky at the first stand, which seems to specialise in knobs and knockers 😉 The lovely lady had a fabulous range of brass ware, and I bought a Victorian plug chain too.

I boiled it in acid, I blasted it in the ulrasonic cleaner and I attacked it with a spiky brass brush. Still the antique soap refused to budge! So today I took it apart and scraped all the gunge off with a blade… I think it’s come up quite nicely, don’t you? Goes perfectly with the brass peacock feather thing I made the other day. I suspect this bracelet will evolve into a steampunk charm bracelet before too long!

 

 

Hmmm, not a TOTAL disaster…

Well, I don’t think I’ll be selling these for any money but as a first try with a new technique, it’s less disastrous than I thought yesterday. Now that the resin has cured completely, the colours of the peacock feathers do come through in daylight although they are muted. I think I’ll have another go with some jay feathers as the colour is due to pigment rather than reflected off the surface, rather like butterfly wings.

That’s not gone well.

Ah. All the excitement of yesterday’s resin and peacock feathers has subsided.  Two main reasons:

1: The resin has a different refractive index to air, so the shimmering colours of the feathers are a very dull shade of brown.  Arse.

2:  I followed all the instructions about putting it to cure in a warm place and thought the top of the telly would be a good idea.  The resin that I had made into lovely blobs on a sheet of carbon fibre ready to carve cabochons sort of dripped off the edge and dribbled down the screen and onto the carpet.  Double arse.

And there’s dust in it. Triple arse.

So that didn’t go very well at all.  Never mind.  I nearly finished making something very funky today, and if the silver arrives tomorrow for the last bit of fabrication, I shall show you then.

And that's what I think about that.