{"id":445,"date":"2011-06-22T00:08:22","date_gmt":"2011-06-21T14:08:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/userblogs.ganoksin.com\/suzannecronin\/?p=445"},"modified":"2011-06-26T01:00:09","modified_gmt":"2011-06-25T15:00:09","slug":"conquered-sort-of","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/userblogs.ganoksin.com\/suzannecronin\/2011\/06\/22\/conquered-sort-of\/","title":{"rendered":"Conquered…Sort Of"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ve had it in my head for years that I want to master a tap and die connection. Why? Well, when I was a student I had a go and I completely screwed it up. Pardon the pun! $\"\"$ <\/a><\/p>\n

I made a brooch for a lovely lady Deborah Drearley<\/a>, who’s having a hard time fighting battles to save some beautiful coastal Moonahs. She loves the brooch but was wondering if I could cap it somehow so it wouldn’t catch on cloth. The perfect opportunity to take out the tap and die set. I am convinced the best way to learn is to have a problem to solve. This is a one off mind you, I’m sure there are simpler solutions, like a rubber tip perhaps. It was a bit like fitting pieces of a puzzle together; where does this bit go, and what do I do with it? I think I figured it out, or at least I was confident I had when I produced a silver screw. The female\/tube, however was tiny and I thought it would just be too fiddly.<\/p>\n

$\"\"$ <\/a>Given the brooch is a cast Moonah seed pod I thought I could use the same idea of a single pod that I had used for Tara’s ring. This, I have to confess was after an unsuccessful attempt to add a silver ball to the end of the tube. I must have been delusional to think a pod would be any easier to attach but the solder took on the first try. Now if I could only conquer Mandarin and piano! As far as jewellery goes, I’m looking at these Moonah pods and thinking they have a natural bezel, am I crazy? Would it be possible to mount a stone? I also have a box of enamels which I must have used at some stage but can’t remember how. I never had a kiln. There is a tiny bottle of lavender oil in with the colours. So now I’m on the hunt for a good tutorial on torch or cold enamelling, if such a thing exists.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"