Brian, I'd like to see some photos of the tiny flasks and sling casting. Are you really going to let people do the slinging? What about insurance? Sling casting has always sounded really scary to me.
Hi Marilyn Danger is relative, and we work in a relatively dangerous
area of human endeavour. However uncomfortable they are to feel, fears
are sometimes ill-founded - especially when gravity is concerned. The
law of centrifugal force is counter-intuitive, and we’ve all been
surprised when we first swung a glass of water over our head without
losing the water. Sling casting is not as scary as you might think.
This method of casting I use now is not the cradle and chain version
illustrated in Tim’s Complete Metalsmith book. It’s the illustration
right below it, a hand version of the common broken-arm centrifugal
casting machine, only it’s way less scary to use. I’ve put a few
pictures up <www.adam.co.nz/backpages>.
I’ve taught standard broken-arm centrifugal casting and students are
terrified in general of the thing. However this hand-pulled version,
after a few practice pulls with nothing in it, is a dream to use. You
can buy them from the Pfortzheim supplier Karl Fischer
<www.fischer-pforzheim.com/> (catalogue page 12).
The article I posted to Orchid on May 1st called “Jewellery Review”,
an article by the way written by Kate Ewing
<www.craftinfo.org.nz/news/moreinfo/walker_fritsch.htm>, reviewed in
part a German jeweller’s work made mostly by this method. He toured
New Zealand recently and taught a few workshops on using this machine.
I was impressed with the way simple gear and simplified burnouts can
make lost wax casting more spontaneous and more accessible and less
expensive than the normal trade 8hr burnout cycle and more expensive
machinery.
Brian
B r i a n � A d a m
w o r k s h o p s 2 0 0 1
www.adam.co.nz/workshops summer in Canada/USA