Playing with titanium

Last Friday I did something very, very out of character for me: I bought something on an impulse. I never buy stuff impulsively. Never, ever. And this one time I did. I ordered some titanium. Yes, titanium. A small piece: 2.54cm x 15.24cm, and 0.4mm thick. I was really surprised when it was delivered today: talk about fast shipping!

The monster... aka small, thin titanium strip.

Anyway, since Friday I was wondering if I will be able to even cut it, as titanium is notoriously hard metal. I had also no idea what I would make out of it, until yesterday.

Quick and dirty "concept sketches". I started with the wolf one.

Naturally, when it arrived, I just had to play with it! What I can say after one day of handling titanium, is this: it's incredibly light metal. Honestly, I was surprised. Almost felt like aluminium. It's lighter than copper, but much, much stronger (obviously). The strip I ordered came annealed, so it's soft, as far as titanium goes, but it still is pretty hard. I was able to bend the strip a bit, though not permanently. It has also kind of satiny feel to it. I really can't describe it better than that.


I was a bit worried about my saw blades. I just couldn't imagine how many of them I would use up cutting through the metal (or, indeed, if it will be at all feasible with the blades I have). I'm happy to say it went better than I expected. I cut out a teardrop shape, about 2.5cm in height, and maybe 2cm in the widest place.

The titanium blank, and all the saw blades that perished cutting it out.

I used up three blades on that. The last one still had some teeth left.

Click for close up on those poor blades

Now I'm wondering if I should buy better blades just for titanium, or if there's no point in that. I wouldn't like to spend £4 on 10 blades only to find out they dull as quickly as the ones I'm using right now.

After that was cut...

The first blade was done for.

After I cut the shape out, I had a bit tidying up left do do, especially in one place. I filed the sides down a bit, and this went pretty fast. I was surprised, I thought it would be much more difficult.

By the way, the little teardrop shape can't be bent. I mean, I just used my hands, and didn't apply unreasonable force, but it's really stiff. I'm trying to imagine hardened titanium, and I can't ;P

The shop I ordered the titanium from had also niobium, and I was tempted to buy that instead, but there is one little, teeny-tiny issue that was the key factor in my decision to buy the dreaded titanium after all. Niobium has some awesome oxides, that come in an awesome array of colours. Titanium has pretty much identical colour range, with one difference: you can colour titanium with a torch, but, as far as I know, you can't do that with niobium. And I didn't feel like playing with high voltages required for anodising niobium. I mean, they start low, around 10V, but go beyond the 100V mark, and that's positively scary.

The pendant I started working on requires only one colour: deep blue. There will be another part of titanium visible, but I plan to leave that one its normal silver-gray colour. The second one will require light blue and gold.

As I was experimenting with flame colouring today, I made a mistake and overheated the piece. That changed the colour I was aiming for, the deep blue, to light blue with some whitish splotches. So I had to sand that down, and start again. This way, I got an answered to my question: will I be able to obtain two colours on one piece? The answer is yes.

Heat coloured titanium. Not perfect, but just look at those hues!

When you heat titanium, its colour changes somewhat in this sequence: first, it's getting a bit more... silver-ish. Then, a bit brownish, that it gets a really nice golden colour, and then the colour shifts towards blue spectrum: first a purple, then deep blue, then sky blue, then gets almost white. From what I read, the next colours would be greens and pinks, and finally dark grey, almost black. I didn't get to those colours though.

 What is important here, for me, is that when I was making a second attempt at deep blue, I wasn't working on an entirely clean piece. I sanded a part of it, but another part stayed sky blue. Thanks to this, I know now that for the second piece I can easily obtain sky blue and gold on one piece of metal. The coloured part didn't change one bit.

 I must say, I absolutely love the wide range of colours you can create this way! Flame colouring titanium is much easier than it is with copper: I know, I tried. Apparently, I'm hopeless with obtaining heat patina on copper

Now I just have to wait for diamond drills bits to arrive, because you can't solder titanium, so I will have to rivet it and the copper together. I did make first opening in the copper part of the pendant today, just to see how the two look together.

First opening made.

It looks better than in this picture. I didn't cut all of them, as it was pretty late already, and I though my neighbours wouldn't be very happy if they had to listen to drilling for much longer ;)

After one day experience with titanium, I can say that it's definitely an interesting material to work with, and its colourful oxides provide a whole range of possibilities. I can't way to finish this piece, and to see how it will turn out!

I'm also wondering if my engraving bits would survive engraving titanium... they do have diamond tips, and I have two sets of them, but still. I wonder how long they would last...

Till the next time!
Kasia

Mixed media pendant and locket in progress

 Remember I wrote some time ago about making a locket? Well, I'm making a third attempt right now, and that one looks like it may actually get finished :) The first attempt became rubbish pretty quickly, the second... wasn't looking that bad until I started to finish it off, and noticed just then that one of the walls got soldered on skewed. After that I took a break form locket-making, and yesterday started a third one. I also completely changed the design. On a more difficult one. Typical me ;)

But I'm pretty happy with how it looks like right now, and I'm only a chain, a bail, and finished hinge away from completing, so I hope this one will end up nice and all. Although, if it will be good enough for me to even consider putting it up for sale, I have no idea how to price it. I don't think I can use my usual pricing formula, because I had so many problems with soldering the hinge knuckles on, that I spent 4 hours today on this task alone. Yes, four. And I was quite close to losing my mind by the time I finished it. But I did finally manage to solder them on, so as far as the hinge goes, I just need to set a hinge pin in place. I hope this will go easier.

So, here it is:

Still a lot to do, but I like it.

It's greenish inside, because I took those pictures after the first batch of pickle stopped working, and before I made another one. It dried in the meantime, and the verdigris patina is the result. I don't know if you can see it, but there are two layers inside: the raven in a foreground, and a branch in a background. Surprisingly for me, I didn't have any problems with sawing the bird out, nor with soldering it and the branch inside the locket. A major miracle, I feel.

As for the mixed media pendant... I was reading something, someone mentioned mixed media jewellery, someone else was complaining how they've got too many interests, and how to combine all of them, and I've got a light bulb moment, and just had to try something like that. And that pendant (well, right now a part of one) is the result:

 

I'm shamelessly happy with it

The frame of the pendant is copper, the painting is acrylic and Indian ink on watercolour paper, with mica powders on the moon and on the spirals on the wolf's face, and the painting is encased in resin.

Funny thing is, I really don't like painting miniatures, yet somehow always get ideas where I have to paint or draw one anyway. Though I had a lot of fun painting this one! And I already have and idea for a second pendant.

One picture is just not enough

I really like how the frame turned out. I had no idea how it was going to end up, I only knew it will wrinkle. But I just love the look of it. And I rather like that folding it like that is somewhat unpredictable.

However, there is one slight problem: after I poured the resin, I carefully passed a torch over it to get rid of bubbles. And I did. There were none. And yet, when the resin was almost dry, I check on it... and there were two huge bubbles on the lower right hand side of the pendant. And they popped, and left two dimples in resin. You can see them in the pictures. I will have to add another layer: the dimples will still be visible, but the paper won't be exposed to outside world.

If not for those dimples, I would be ecstatic about this one.

And I also made a mistake: I got over-exited about the painting, encased it in resin, and  then realised that for the bail I designed, I should wait with it until the end. I wanted the bail to go directly through the loop. And now I can't do this, because I can't solder anything that near to the part with resin. I designed another bail, and will see how it will turn out.

I also made three cuffs, and a ring, but this post is getting long, so that's it for now:)

Till the next time!
Kasia

Homotherium's jewellery debut!

As I've mentioned in previous post, I've been thinking about merging my passion for jewellery with my passion for palaeontology, and I did just that! The first palaeo-pieces are dedicated to Homotherium, and in particiular, to Homotherium latidens, an Eurasian species. 

For those who don't know much about that saber-toothed cat, let me write an introduction: Homotherium is a genus of machairodontidae family (one of several families, spread along three different biological taxa, of animals commonly referred to as saber-toothed cats), one that lived during the Pliocene and Pleistocene epochs. It was a rather successful genus, ranging from both Americas, Eurasia and Africa, and existing for approximately 5 million years. Homotherium is sometimes referred to as a scimitar cat, or a scimitar-toothed cat: this is because it has a different, shorter type of canines than its better known cousins like, for example, Smilodon. Its canines also have serrated edges, and those probably helped with cutting through thick hide of the preferred prey.

You already saw that one, but introduction without a picture is no introduction!

Homotherium displays an array of adaptations to life in cold climates, and more cursorial lifestyle than typical for most cats. It had large nasal opening, which allowed it to breathe faster (by which I mean it was able to breathe in and out quite rapidly, and that's really important if you want to run fast, just ask any horse ;) helping with running and cooling the brain. It had also large and complex visual cortex, which suggest it was more diurnal rather than nocturnal like most other cats. Homotherium's limbs were proportionally long, and, interestingly, its forelegs were longer than its hind legs, giving it sloped, hyaena-like appearance. Feet on the back legs were also partially plantigrade, to allow a greater contact with substrate on which the animal walked, making it easier for it to move across the snow.

Apart from being adapted to a more cursorial, active lifestyle than most cats, it was also a big-game hunter. It's typically associated with higher altitudes, and most common in the North, alongside big prey animals such as mammoths and woolly rhinos. Some evidence suggests that it specialised in hunting juvenile mammoths. This in turn suggests that those cats probably hunted in prides, similar to modern day lions. Animals whose remains are found alongside those of Homotherium's would be very difficult for an individual cat to bring down. Homotherium was about the size of a modern male African lion.

It first became extinct in Africa (about 1.5 million years ago), than in Eurasia, with the youngest found remains estimated to being about 28 000 years old (though that may not be correct estimate) about the time when climate shifted, and forests became more dominant in the landscape. Homotherium was a cold steppe hunter, and the shift to more forested environment favoured prey it was not well equipped to hunt). The genus lasted longest in North America, until about 10 000 year ago. Evidence from South America is scant, with a few recorded fossils of 1.8 million year old H. venezuelensis. It's hard to tell how long the genus lasted there, but it certainly did partake in the Great American Interchange, alongside Smilodon. 

It also happens to be one of my favourite saberteeth (hope that's the correct plural;) 

And as for the jewellery:

There's a necklace:

I must say that it was fun to make it (and earrings as well). I wanted it to feature Homotherium specifically, and not just some generic sabertooth head. To make the image, I first found a picture of Homotherium's skull (and it was H. latidens to be exact), drew a grid on it, copied in on a piece of paper, then scaled it down, drew soft tissue on the skull, and then scaled the whole thing even more, so it would fit on the pendant. It was an interesting exercise. The rest was easy, and typical: adding scrolls to the design, making the chain, the bail, oxidising...

And while I'm writing about the skull: it's rather long, and the lower jaw has down-turned flanges, that helped to protect the canines. The skull has also a well-developed crest, and that means that these animals had a hell lot of muscles to power the lower jaw. 

The necklace is 50cm ( 10 4/16in) long, and the pendant is 3.2cm (1 4/16in) in diameter. 

I forgot to use polarizing filter. Oh, well...

 There are also earrings, as I've already mentioned:

The images of the heads here I made exactly the same way as on the pendant. I must say that fitting them on a 1cm wide strip of metal was fun... I also decided to solder a jump ring to each earring, instead of making a whole in them. And of course I ended with solder all over the place. And what is really irritating about that? I had a little dish with yellow ocher pastel powder at hand. I just forgot it was there. I will either get really good at soldering, and stop getting solder everywhere, or will invent some extremely effective way of getting rid of the stuff, or maybe I will actually develop some decent memory, and stop forgetting about things like using something to stop the solder from flowing where I don't want it to go... The second one from all of these is the most probable development ;P

I've also got a new lens, and I already like it much, much better than the old one.

While making the earrings, I decided to play with a saw a bit more than usual, to practice. I know, it's not a very intricate shape, but I'm happy with it, especially because I managed to cut each earring in one continuous loop. That's really good, considering my sawing skills... or lack thereof... I now actually have some hopes of developing decent sawing-capabilities. Not so long ago I would not believe it possible. Unthinkable: my saw started to cooperate with me ( or, more likely, I stopped stopping it from doing its work properly) ;) The earrings are 4.5cm (6 with ear wire) or approx 1.8in (~2.4in counting ear wire) long.

So, that's that. Necklace is available here, and earrings here. And I also got renaissance wax, and I'm going to see how it works. Right now I now only one thing: it stinks like shoe polish ;P I hope it was worth the price tough. 

Till the next time!

Kasia

PS. should someone like a print with Homotherium, or, I don't now, a mug or something, I'm on redbubble. And I sometimes actually upload something there... 
PS2. Sources! I forgot to list the sources I used, and now I'm embarrassed! So here we go:
Ascanio D. Rincón, Francisco J. Prevosti & Gilberto E. Parra "New saber-toothed cat records (Felidae: Machairodontinae) for the Pleistocene of Venezuela, and the Great American Biotic Interchange", Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, 31 (2), pages 468-478, DOI:10.1080/02724634.2011.550366
http://www.wired.com/2010/11/facing-homotherium/
http://www.prehistoric-wildlife.com/species/h/homotherium.html