There are moments, in the shop, when I feel overwhelmed. There’s so much to learn. My father had the advantage of being a metallurgical engineer when he started, and my lack of a scientific background sometimes makes me feel as though I really started from behind the 8 ball. It isn’t just the pewtering, but the machines we use to create the finished product. When the lathe or the buffer doesn’t work properly, I don’t know how to fix them and just have to wait for my father.
I want to learn it all fast. I’m now 47 years old. One thing I am working on, with age, is letting go of regrets, such as ‘I wish I’d started this sooner’. Regrets really are completely pointless. But that doesn’t mean I don’t feel the pressure of time. And, while I am admitting things, I do wonder if it is crazy to try to learn a whole new skill set at my age.
Add to that my fibromyalgia and the separation process – mediation, endless discussions and looking for a new place to live – and sometimes I want to just curl up into a fetal ball under the bed. I’ve been in a great deal of pain the past few days. A good way to describe it is to think of how your whole body aches when you have a bad fever. Add exhaustion, stomach pain too severe to really eat and upset guts and you’ll have a fairly accurate picture of where I am at right now. It makes pewtering tougher. Which is why I am writing this instead.
Plus, I am working on setting up an Etsy shop, and possibly eBay too. My dad has a website, but I am trying to drag him even further onto the internet. He’s being remarkably willing to go along with all this, but then, my parents have embraced all the 21st century has to offer. (They may be in their 70s, but they both have iPads!) So stay turned for more info on our expanding online presence.
Anyway, two things made me feel somewhat better this week, despite the pain and doubt. One was a quote by Neil deGrasse Tyson: “In whatever you choose to do, do it because it is hard, not because it is easy.” I think he might be paraphrasing John F. Kennedy. Whatever – it helped me focus on the fact that true accomplishment doesn’t come from mastering something easy. It’s succeeding at the difficult stuff that matters.
The other thing was fun in the workshop. It doesn’t take much to amuse me, I should point out. First, my dad showed me how to use this machine:
Up until now, it has had a cover over it and we used it to put stuff on. Unfortunately, I forgot my camera, so I only have photos I took with my iPod that aren’t the greatest quality. This machine is filled with tiny smooth pieces of metal. The little tube on the left pours in a soap solution and the machine spins the contents around, vibrating them, which polishes them. My father uses it for small cast items, which are very difficult to buff. We tossed in handles and spoons and Christmas decorations.
It was so fun to watch and the child in me wanted to just grab all kinds of things and toss them in to see what happens. In fact, I’ve already warned my father that my youngest and I would be back here with rocks, to see what the polisher does to them.
Filtering out the polished pieces.
The other thing we did was take all the pewter dust, shavings and trimmings from sweeping up the shop and melt it down. Because it burns off a lot of garbage, my father moves the hot pot outside for the job. So I took the contents of this:
Melted it down:
And turned it into these:
Melting stuff is fun.
Becoming a Pewtersmith 