I did another cuttlefish casting this weekend but this time it came
out absolutely black in places. Not the whole thing. I’ve tried
pickling it, even made a fresh batch when it didn’t seem to be
coming clean.
I had a spill over the edge of the mould into sand and these pieces
have cleaned up perfectly, so has part of the piece itself. The rest
is black, orange etc and it just doesn’t want to come clean.
I didn’t have the same prob last time, the only difference is that I
used borax instead of flux when I melted the silver, I even used the
same silver as last time, the knob that I cut off of the first cast
that is.
Could be that the metal was to hot and burned the cuttlefish bone.
Could be the bone itself as with all things that eat other things,
you tend to be what you eat. Not all cuttle fish are created equal.
Could have gotten some from a totally different part of the ocean
and trace elemnts caused problems.
Try a button casting with the same procedure you did the first
time,and then one the way you did it the second time. you can
compare the two side by side. Did you add new metal to the old stuff
for each casting. I have found that adding new metal to each melt
seems to help the casting. Also do you use the melting vessel for
more than one type of metal. It is a good idea to use seperate
melting pots. No cross contamination. And finally it could have been
a one time deal, due to unhappy shop trolls !
Been there, done that and still trying to figure it out !
glen