What better to do on a cold wet rainy night is there to do but huddle up around a nice fire? Specially when that fire has blue flames, and ladle full of melting metal in it…

It is true that my night did not however start off sitting by that fire… it started off in a cold room… with lights, while I slaved relentlessly chipping away at stone…

You see, yesterday I found a worthwhile project to put my pewter casting skills to good use. I offered to make a shiny new coronet to go with her shiny new Court Barony. So this evening I was playing… I carved the basic mould, and spend a few hours testing how it poured. There was a lot of tweaking going on.. and I have worked out that I might need to create a warming rack sit above the burner to allow the moulds to be kept at temperature while waiting for large bits of pewter to melt. I’m also tempted to get a small cast iron pot or something similar so that I can keep a reasonable amount of pewter in a liquid state and just use the ladle for dipping and pouring.

The mould came out better than I thought, and while there’s currently a few issues getting it to pour completely, I believe that they will not be some much of an issue when detail is added, and the mould is smoothed. With all the modifications needed to get the mould to pour right, I only get about 3 pours per ladle full at the moment… which means braving the weather and heading out into the cold with a chisel and a hammer and making bit sized bits to feed the ladle with… Hmmm… not going t happen just now. Anyway, It’s amazing what you can make in a few hours, specially if you don’t look at all the faults.

Now I just need a period looking fox, and some decoration, add the detail and then get the mould to pour right. I love this job… and I love working with pewter.. so easy… yet it can make some really good looking cheap stuff.