Dali Dreams of Butterflies, II

[corivax]

By request, smelting pictures. These are not from the recent smelting party, where I was too busy playing host, but I am pleased to announce we actually got copper (in usable forms) from the recent one.

Comments

[motive_nuance]

Wowowow! Super neat!

Next, pictures from the one that produced copper?

[corivax]

Unfortunately, I don't have pictures from that one! It was at a smelting/forging party, and I spent most of my time instructing people in blacksmithing at the forge, rather than tending the furnace. Most of my pictures are of people who wanted documentation of themselves hammering on glowing metal.

We'll probably throw another forging/smelting party soon, though - it was a success in every way imaginable.

[craigp]

huh; the red ochre looks just like the raspberries i had with my shortcake the other day.

thanks for the pics!

[thewronghands]

That is completely awesome and I'm sorry I missed it. Do let me know if/when you do it again.

[twoeleven]

neat! the glazed copper is particularly cool.

as to rocks that can take the heat, what about firebrick? or does it not take that much heat?

[corivax]

Thank you!

There are several kinds of firebrick. They can be insulative, suitably high melting point, or appropriate to the chalcolithic period, any two. :) But yeah, we're thinking of building an aboveground firebrick furnace next time, and thickly coating the whole thing in clay for insulation.

[crimmycat]

Wow - the dissected butterfly wings look beautiful - what scale are they? Would they survive becoming jewelry and the wear that entails?

Spokane - I had never seen a picture of the area, thank you. It seems much drier and related to the west than the green drizzly image I have of Seattle.

Glad to hear you had a lot of fun - sounds like a wonderful time! How were the marshmallows?

[corivax]

The Cascade Mountains run up through Oregon and Washington. The ocean side of them is green and wet, with mild, rainy winters (no snow), and, uh, mild rainy springs and falls and summers too. :) But the rain can't get over the mountains, and the East side is dry as dust. There are deserts where nothing at all grows (one area near Ellensburg is frequently referred to as 'the moonscape'), but most of it is like the picture, scrub and sage. They get buried under feet of snow in winter, too. It's lovely, but very different than Seattle/Portland/Hoh Rain Forest/etc.

The butterfly wings are about an inch long, I think. I imagine the redpale copper would become verdigris green over time, and they're kind of sharp edged, so I don't know how well they'd work for jewelry.