Buy_Sell wrote:

Excellent work, David. I could only hope to be able to learn the same
skills.
What method did you use to melt the metal for your casting?
I bought all of Steve Chastain's books regarding forging and casting.
http://stephenchastain.com/

Thanks for the compliment. That tankard is pewter which is very easy to
spin as it doesn't work harder, that didn't stop me screwing a few up
when I went back to do a few more after not doing any for a couple of
years. The first ones I did just came out right, my neighbour said like
shelling peas. I started on a goblet shape which I realise now is tricky
due to the small base and so desrtoyed the blanks quickly but did manage
to get the hang of it on the 7th or 8th one IIRC. At least now there are
internet resources like the spinning group for backup, when I started I
just had to wing it with the little info I could find.

The handle was cast in pewter which melts about 300C (572F) and I just
melted it in a stainless steel kitchen ladle over a propane torch. The
metal is hotter than recommended for the RTV but in practice it stands
up fine for the limited numbers being cast.

The other item I spun on my site is the soffietta
http://www.metal-arts.co.uk/soffietta/index.html . In brass they require
1 or 2 anneals depending on size. The worst I have done for anneals was
an item like a trumpet cone about 6" OD in about .8mm brass, it took
about an hour total of which maybe 10 minutes was spinning and 50
minutes annealing, probably about 12 - 15 anneals.




On Nov 4, 1:00 pm, David Billington
wrote:

While I have spun a number of items the only one I have pictures of is
herehttp://www.metal-arts.co.uk/tankard/index.html, must take some
better pics sometime.