RT/Pancake Die Paradise

[sheltech1]

Funny thought just in: reading ‘Children of Dune’, one line : “you can’t have a single thing without also having it’s opposite”. Making these dies as a career since 1987 has been a huge blessing, and…it’s own special kind of “hell” at times. It’s not easy taking a simple idea/concept/process and being forced (by fascination, obsession, and the real-world necessity created by people sending me challenging projects) to refine, advance, innovate, and perfect it. But it beats having a regular job There are times when I hate it. It’s hard, confusing, dirty, messy, uncooperative, tedious, boring, and frustrating- sometimes all at once But this is my path and I don’t question that it is the right one. Mostly, I love it.

Anyway, I don’t really have much new to report. It took 2 years to nail down heat treating 4130 steel. Pressing and/or rolling shallow impression-plate parts is an ongoing evolution. I stay busy on my Facebook group. (1) Dar Shelton’s Pancake Die Paradise | Facebook Instagram has been useless as far as getting work. I don’t feel like posting dies here, now. My other posts show what’s what, and there’s my youtube channel (1) DogBoyDar - YouTube

So…how about something completely different? Recent non-jewelry projects. Painting by Wynn Chase.

![Outside 8 Wankstagram|333x500]

[Jelf0]

I particularly like the stellated octahedron within a larger wireframe one, hanging outdoors.
And I would certainly agree, most people have a love/hate relationship with their calling. I certainly have.

[sheltech1]

Stellated Octahedron, nice observation. It IS that, and also Two Tetrahedrons aka Star Tetrahedron aka Merkabah. Building the wire (pipe, actually) frame one is easy, conceptually. I made 6 giant 90-degree “X” pieces and assembled them as if they were the faces of a cube (which they are, conceptually, when you look at it a certain way). The inner one has a 5/32" welding rod skeleton, and .050" steel skin. It was a real pain, because I had not tried to weld anything like it on that scale before. Half-(ass) welded, and also screwed together, not hanging, but rather, sticking up on a pole. All of that was a pretty clever bit of backyard engineering.

[sheltech1]

More stellated octahedra stuff…couldn’t find a full pic of the red and yellow curved-wire one, but it’s stellations are similar to the rusty one on a pole, however, the red and yellow one has it’s internal octahedron turned into a “sphere” by replacing each of it’s edges with a pair of curved wires, which turns each face into a circle.