Pewter is a traditional low-temperature metal-casting material used to make everything from jewelry to goblets. Osso di seppia, which is Italian for "cuttlefish bone", is a common technique used when casting pewter. A two-piece mold is made by carving or impressing an item into the bone, pouring the molten metal, and removing the mold marks and extra material after the metal cools.
Using Pewter to make jewelry, and using cuttle fish to create a mold, and casting.
Cuttlefish is easy to manipulate and create one time molds for casting, making each piece of jewelry individual.
Here is an image of a live cuttle fish.
Cuttlefish Mold
Making the cuttlefish mold
Starting with an accurate template made from your chosen design, make an impression into the cuttlefish bone making sure it has enough space/bone around the design.
Using tools such as a scribe or bradawl excavate the design carefully, ensuring an even depth throughout the design. If your design includes text or symbols you must work in reverse. When the mold is complete you need to add two channels a riser and a runner - this is where the molten pewter will be poured in.
Pewter
Pewter is a malleable metal alloy, traditionally between 85 and 99 percent tin, with the remainder consisting of copper, antimony, bismuth, and lead.
Copper and antimony act as hardeners while lead is common in the lower grades of pewter, which have a bluish tint. It has a low melting point, around 170–230 °C (about oven temperature), depending on the exact mixture of metals.
The school uses a lead-free pewter which has a melting point of between 240*C and 255*C.
The image above shows a 1kg bar which costs about 30GBP = 375$HK
The word pewter is probably a variation of the word spelter, a colloquial name for zinc.
Using a blow torch the pewter is slowly melted until it changes into a liquid state - it is then carefully poured into the prepared mold.
Allowing it to cool for a few minutes, the mold is unfastened and the cast pewter is extracted carefully before being quenched in cold water.
Design Brief & Specifications
Interesting shapes can be made by re-forming metals.
This involves melting them and then pouring the molten metal into a mould and allowing it to set by cooling. Many products, large or small, can be cast froma range of metals. Task:
Design and manufacture an item of jewellery that can be cast from pewter. The shape and theme are your choice. It must, however, be easily identifiable. Specification
The final product should be no larger than 45 x 45 mm. Mindmap
Begin by thinking and researching of possible shapes / themes for your jewellery. In your design journal, create a mindmap to begin your design process. Sketching initial ideas:
Use your mindmap to sketch your initial designs you shoud pick three themes form your mindmap and create five design for each theme. Be sure to include detail and annotation. Moodboards of ideas: Celtic theme Leaf theme Cloud theme Homework
Using the computer you are going to use two pages (A4) to collect images of the following:
Examples of Pewter products
Examples of interesting jewellery
Images from your chosen themes (choose 2)
You should make a note of the source of your images, and annotate your images appropriately. E.g. materials, theme, inspirations, designers, styles etc.
Design Ideas
We are going to create jewelry, or ornaments, below are some examples of different styles for you to think about before you design your jewelery.
Develop designs that you like, you need to simplify them as cuttlefish bone can be difficult to carve out intricate shapes. Start adding dimensions. Record your thoughts through annotations.
Then trace your final solution using tracing paper.
Homework Task
Watch the video to recap what you have been doing today, then answer the following 10 questions using images and text - and reference all sources.
Table of Contents
Pewter is a traditional low-temperature metal-casting material used to make everything from jewelry to goblets. Osso di seppia, which is Italian for "cuttlefish bone", is a common technique used when casting pewter. A two-piece mold is made by carving or impressing an item into the bone, pouring the molten metal, and removing the mold marks and extra material after the metal cools.
Using Pewter to make jewelry, and using cuttle fish to create a mold, and casting.
Cuttlefish
Cuttlefish is easy to manipulate and create one time molds for casting, making each piece of jewelry individual.Here is an image of a live cuttle fish.
Cuttlefish Mold
Making the cuttlefish moldStarting with an accurate template made from your chosen design, make an impression into the cuttlefish bone making sure it has enough space/bone around the design.
Using tools such as a scribe or bradawl excavate the design carefully, ensuring an even depth throughout the design. If your design includes text or symbols you must work in reverse. When the mold is complete you need to add two channels a riser and a runner - this is where the molten pewter will be poured in.
Pewter
Pewter is a malleable metal alloy, traditionally between 85 and 99 percent tin, with the remainder consisting of copper, antimony, bismuth, and lead.
Copper and antimony act as hardeners while lead is common in the lower grades of pewter, which have a bluish tint. It has a low melting point, around 170–230 °C (about oven temperature), depending on the exact mixture of metals.
The school uses a lead-free pewter which has a melting point of between 240*C and 255*C.
The image above shows a 1kg bar which costs about 30GBP = 375$HK
The word pewter is probably a variation of the word spelter, a colloquial name for zinc.
Using a blow torch the pewter is slowly melted until it changes into a liquid state - it is then carefully poured into the prepared mold.
Allowing it to cool for a few minutes, the mold is unfastened and the cast pewter is extracted carefully before being quenched in cold water.
Design Brief & Specifications
Interesting shapes can be made by re-forming metals.This involves melting them and then pouring the molten metal into a mould and allowing it to set by cooling. Many products, large or small, can be cast froma range of metals.
Task:
Design and manufacture an item of jewellery that can be cast from pewter. The shape and theme are your choice. It must, however, be easily identifiable.
Specification
The final product should be no larger than 45 x 45 mm.
Mindmap
Begin by thinking and researching of possible shapes / themes for your jewellery. In your design journal, create a mindmap to begin your design process.
Sketching initial ideas:
Use your mindmap to sketch your initial designs you shoud pick three themes form your mindmap and create five design for each theme. Be sure to include detail and annotation.
Moodboards of ideas:
Celtic theme
Leaf theme
Cloud theme
Homework
Using the computer you are going to use two pages (A4) to collect images of the following:
- Examples of Pewter products
- Examples of interesting jewellery
- Images from your chosen themes (choose 2)
You should make a note of the source of your images, and annotate your images appropriately. E.g. materials, theme, inspirations, designers, styles etc.Design Ideas
We are going to create jewelry, or ornaments, below are some examples of different styles for you to think about before you design your jewelery.Develop designs that you like, you need to simplify them as cuttlefish bone can be difficult to carve out intricate shapes. Start adding dimensions. Record your thoughts through annotations.
Then trace your final solution using tracing paper.
Homework Task
Watch the video to recap what you have been doing today, then answer the following 10 questions using images and text - and reference all sources.
Resources
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