Work On Coral Broach
This was for a metalsmithing class I took at UWM. I made a paper model of of my design so I would be able to make all the adjustments easily before I started to work with the metal. These pieces of paper also doubled as my stencils for cutting out my pieces.
Next I cut out all the pieces. Having a lot of sharp angles and points was not very helpful here.
This part was pretty fun. I started with etching the sand patterning on the base piece. Then I placed the coral pieces on top and put the resist on them so that they would have the same patterns as below. Then while the pieces were where I wanted them, I drilled the rivet holes through both pieces at the same time so they would be sure to line up later.
This part was very annoying! I went with a mirror finish because I wanted my project to feel like a sunken ocean treasure, but the only polishing wheel we had in the shop was a 1/4 wide wheel that attached to the handle dremel. This made the process very slow, and also very difficult to get an even finish. The tiny wheel made it very difficult to not have streak marks. If I could do this again I think I would do something different, but I'm happy enough with the results based on what I had at the time.
The rivets for this were very tiny. And the class ran out of rivet wire near the end of this project so one of my tube rivets on the corners is actually not fully connected. The wire was cut just barely too short and we genuinely didn't have any more wire so I just had to deal with it.