The apprentice’s apprentice

I cannot believe it has been so long since I updated the blog! I swear that I write it all the time in my head. Yes, I am aware that’s also known as talking to yourself …

So, what have I been up to? I made some more little boxes, but really must stop now. I need people to actually buy some before I make more. It is fun coming up with things to put on the lids, though.

It’s a pomegranate!

This is my younger daughter, who is 10. She loves the workshop and is quite desperate to learn how to pewter as well. Much of it is beyond her right now, but she loves to help as much as she can, so she worked with me on the little boxes.

Preparing lids for painting

She also likes to poke around. There is a lot to explore – drawers filled with stuff that my father has cast, or even that Doug cast, are a favorite. Half the time my father doesn’t even know what is in them.

She found dolphins that were originally Doug’s and loved them. She wanted to make something out of them as a birthday gift for a friend, so this is what we came up with. I buffed them and soldered them on to the piece of pewter for her. She planished the pewter first for ‘waves’, then painted it. She loved it so much that she then didn’t want to give it away. But she did. She will make herself one at some point.

Trying Something New

Last week, I was talking to a friend and told her about my new adventure. It turns out that she runs the gift shop for the synagogue we belong to and is looking for some original, local stuff to sell. I am Jewish. My father is not. This hasn’t stopped him from creating a whole line of Judaica (some of which you can see here).

My friend was delighted to hear about this, but asked particularly about tzedakah boxes. These are boxes you can use to collect money for charity (children often put in part of their allowance every week, for example). You can use something a simple as a tin can, but nicer boxes are popular as gifts and appreciated as works of art. It had never occurred to us, but I love nice boxes, so I thought it was a great suggestion.

We started off by deciding on a size – 5.5″ tall by 3.5″ wide and 2″ deep.

I keep my thumbs out of the way!

I cut mine out of a new sheet of pewter, sawed them out and started planishing, and my father started his by welding together scraps to make the same shape. His way was faster, but only because he actually welds successfully, of course.

My father has this cool system for making boxes wherein you only cut out two pieces to make the body of the box, not four. Then, he explained, I would measure 2″ line, draw a line and then use a saw blade on a rotary tool to score the piece along that line.

Now, one: the sheet of metal isn’t that thick – only a couple of millimeters. And two: planishing flat pieces isn’t as easy as it seems. I figured you can just hammer away with no concerns about denting, but you need to be extra vigilant that no random bit of dust or speck of pewter lands on the metal because it will create marks, and all the flat surfaces in the workshop are rather, um, busy.

So planishing those rectangles was hard work, and then my father wanted me to just hand-saw only half-way through the metal. It was nerve-wracking. As with everything else, I practiced on a piece of scrap first and was actually successful, so I attacked my precious planished pieces next.

Eeek!

Saw, then file into a V-shape, then bend the metal into a 90 degree angle and solder to reinforce it.

Next, I soldered the two pieces together and was rewarded with an actual box shape!

Every step involves filing – filing to straighten edges and get rid of the extra metal from soldering.

The key is to manage that without accidentally scratching the planished area, something I wasn’t always successful at. Accidents meant repairing the damage. It can be very fiddly. Fortunately, I like precise, fiddly work.

The letters are also fiddly, but fun to do.

sawing out the letters

Again, I was quite nervous attaching them. The smaller a piece of pewter, the easier it is to accidentally melt it and those letters are small. It takes a fine touch. Fortunately, soldering really does come more naturally to me than welding and I got them all on successfully (after checking and rechecking that I was spelling the word correctly!)

My father, who is good at welding, welded his letters on.

Ta da!

Getting started

I’ve been working with my dad for several weeks now. I started out making something he calls tube candleholders, which hold tealight candles. These are shaped by cutting rectangles of pewter out of a large sheet and then using a rubber mallet to beat them into the correct shape around a metal stake – something very cathartic for a person dealing with marital difficulties!

The next step is to weld the seam together. I remember being bad at welding 20 years ago. I’m still bad at welding. Fortunately, the step after that is to file down the seam until the metal is smooth, so my lumps all disappeared. Then, I planished them. Planishing involves placing the pewter against a very smooth metal stake and then hammering it with a smooth-headed hammer for a dimpled finish. The shape of the stake differs depending on what is being fashioned. I like these candleholders because the the  planishing is relatively easy. If you are planishing something cup-shaped, you must hit exactly the right spot or instead of an attractive dimple, you will dent it out of shape. But these candleholders are planished on the same metal rod they are shaped around, so it is pretty much impossible to hit the pewter in the wrong spot.

I have ADD, which means I have very little patience for boredom. Generally, anything that forces me to just sit and think drives me crazy with frustration. Attempting meditation of any sort has always been a complete failure for me. I can’t even comprehend how people can find it relaxing. But to me, planishing feels like I imagine mediation is meant to be. It requires just enough concentration – on where to hit next, on keeping the pewter and hammer clean of any debris – to stop me from really thinking about anything else. I find it very relaxing.

I took a crappy photo of my finished product:

Here is a better photo of my father’s version of the same thing:

(You can see the his other candleholders on his website, by the way.)

Next, I tried to make a few quiaches (Scottish drinking vessel). It was my first kick at spinning again, and I kind of messed up the first one I tried to spin on the lathe, causing the surface to ripple rather than be completely smooth. But that is the brilliance behind planishing. It was invented to hide all the imperfections created when shaping a bowl, and it works. There were some spots I had to go over a few times, though, to work out the dents I created making mistakes.

No longer any good for a quaich, I transformed my small bowl into a porringer when I soldered on a handle my father cast. Soldering is the standard method of attaching handles or bases. I am much better at soldering than welding. I like soldering.

The final product is a one-of-a-kind piece in my father’s catalogue, as he doesn’t planish his porringers.