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<\/a>\nFront side\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 Back side
\nAfter 4 years of study two friends and I were promoted to Black Belts.\u00a0 I was looking for something to give to my fellow Black Belts in commemoration of our promotion.\u00a0 Then I remembered the Japanese Temple Guard copper picture I had created.\u00a0 The upper portion of the picture would make a great buckle for presentation.<\/p>\n
I made a modeling clay frame around the upper portion of the Guard picture and poured in wax.\u00a0 Perfect.\u00a0 I now had a wax model. It was obvious I needed an easy way to reproduce the buckle.<\/p>\n Back in those days I didn\u2019t know what I was doing.\u00a0 Of course that statement implies I now know what I am doing.\u00a0 That statement may be a little stretch of the true.<\/p>\n I knew absolutely nothing about rubber molds.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t have a wax pot.\u00a0 I made a one sided mold of my wax out of some cheap cold rubber material.\u00a0 I would melt wax in a tuna fish can and pour it into the mold.\u00a0 Unfortunately I had no way to control the thickness of the poured wax. Once the wax cooled I would scrape the back of the wax until it was the thickness I needed.\u00a0 Fortunately I only needed three buckles.<\/p>\n I eventually bought a wax pot and the learned how to make hot rubber molds.<\/p>\n That brings us up to March 4.\u00a0 There will be a special Black Belt promotion on the end of March.\u00a0 I need seven buckles for this special promotion.\u00a0 I have a problem.\u00a0 I long ago gave my original silver buckle to one of my instructors.\u00a0 The only item of the original buckle I have is the old one sided mold.<\/p>\n Here is where it gets interesting.\u00a0 Friday, March 13, I am having knee surgery.\u00a0 The Doctor says I should be back on my feet in several days.\u00a0 The plan is to cast seven buckles before the knee surgery then solder the findings on after I recover from the knee surgery.<\/p>\n So its back to pouring pink buckles wax into the old mold which is now falling apart.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Unfortunately the mold surface has deteriorated slightly so that the surface is slightly rough. The mold edge is torn on both ends.<\/p>\n At least I can squirt pink buckle wax from my wax pot into the mold. The pink wax is all that I have available. Scraping the wax away to make them thinner is way too time consuming.<\/p>\n How about putting the wax into a container of ice cubes and cold water.\u00a0 Once the wax is cold I might be able to grind the wax away. How about that?\u00a0 It works.\u00a0 I grind the unwanted wax away with a large metal cutting burr then scrape the wax smooth with the edge of a pallet knife.<\/p>\n Not the fastest way to create items but it will have to do.<\/p>\n Once the back is smoothed I hand cut the names, promotion level and date into the back of each buckle.<\/p>\n I poured metal on March 11.\u00a0 Unlike most projects where a failure of one casting does not spoil the other projects the failure of one of these seven buckles will spoil the whole project.\u00a0 If one fails then it would be inappropriate to give out six buckles leaving one promoted individual without a buckle.<\/p>\n I clean up the buckles on Mar 12.\u00a0 Some times the casting angels are on the side of us artists.\u00a0 All seven buckles seem to be fine.\u00a0 A little touch up here and there and I should have seven Black Belt Buckles.<\/p>\n Note the finish of the sterling buckle.\u00a0 The finish is not produced by polishing but by my anti fire scale vacuum casting technique.\u00a0 (See Orchid\u2019s tips from the Jewelers bench for details of the technique)\u00a0 The silver buckle was hand brushed with a brass brush to remove the investment.<\/p>\n Now it\u2019s on to my knee surgery tomorrow morning Mar 13.\u00a0 I will grind sprues and solder on the findings after I recover from my knee surgery. Why is it that every important thing has to be done on an urgent schedule?\u00a0 This interesting project started some 40 years ago. Back then I was studying Karate and had the hobby of creating copper embossed western pictures. I discovered I could pour wax into the back of the pictures and then have the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/userblogs.ganoksin.com\/leessilver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/userblogs.ganoksin.com\/leessilver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/userblogs.ganoksin.com\/leessilver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/userblogs.ganoksin.com\/leessilver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/userblogs.ganoksin.com\/leessilver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=142"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/userblogs.ganoksin.com\/leessilver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/userblogs.ganoksin.com\/leessilver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=142"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/userblogs.ganoksin.com\/leessilver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=142"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/userblogs.ganoksin.com\/leessilver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=142"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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\nI get seven waxes but they are of various thicknesses.
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\nI put a clear plastic sheet over the burr to prevent wax from sailing all over the place.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a> <\/a><\/p>\n
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