Come fly away

This is one of my latest pieces. A commission piece that I was given the concept of (aka: a dove in pieces strung together with jump rings), and I designed it, cut it out and strung it all together. I have to say that my tumbler and steel shot is my new best friend when it comes to making my own jumprings. It was effortless to make them hard and shiny.

The dove is titanium with a cloudy surface texture, and all findings (chain, rings and clasp) are sterling silver. The feather at the end of the chain is titanium with feathery texture engraved on.

So this is why I was breathing titanium dust recently. :)

Titanium Snot

According to Wikipedia, the correct term is 'nasal mucus'. Strangely, snot sound so much more user friendly. Nasal mucus sounds like something one needs to approach a specialist about.

For me, the long weekend offered me three whole days of uninterrupted garage time. Alone in the tiny workspace of a cluttered double garage (it sounds big but honestly, desk & floor space is a precious commodity in there) I was able to practice soldering on a series of "Blossom Rings" in between working on puzzle pieces of titanium.

Titanium is a great metal. It's light, it can take a hammering far longer than silver before work hardening, and it goes rainbow colours when you heat it.

It's also tough. Which is great in many ways - I can use a thinner sheet for a project without worrying it will bend. But it also means that I go through two dozen saw blades in one day, and my drill bit dulls extra fast. And you can't solder it if you mess up and cut through something you weren't supposed to.

All this equates to me needing gutsy rotary tool bits to make a dent on the surface to get the texture I want. And I have to be at it for quite some time with the Dremel in one hand and the thumbnail sized bit of titanium heating up like the surface of Mercury in the other. Which is why frequent breaks of soldering practice were essential. I went from burning my fingertips to singeing my nostril hairs. Good times.

A result of all this grinding of edges and surface texturing (which looks so awesome, btw, that I want to cry with joy), is fine particles of titanium dust. Couple that with a less than perfect dust mask, and I was enjoying the unique experience of gunky black nasal mucus for several hours after I left the garage.