Some of you know that I recently completed wish granter training with my local chapter of the Make a Wish Foundation. This means I will be meeting with a wish kid, figuring out what his or her wish is, and then planning and coordinating it! I decided that since completing the training is called "earning your wand" that I would make a wand worthy of the occasion. I ordered some thin brass (because it was cheap...I'm not made of money, even working two part times around Christmas!), finally had an excuse to buy a jewelry saw, flux, and borrowed some tools and a ridiculously awesome soldering iron/torch from my friend Matthew.
My original plan was for it to look something like this:
But I don't know enough math/geometry wise about making it all fit, so I'm going to bell it out and solder the points together, so there's open airspace inside. Here are some work-in-progres photos.My original plan was for it to look something like this:
I based the triangle on a repeated isoceles triangle having two 36 degree angles and one 72 degree angle (because all the angles within a triangle add up to 180 degrees, correct?). This proved difficult, and I'm not sure where I went wrong. Probably I misjudged the tracing. Anyway, it worked out pretty well.
Here are my pattern stars on top of my old play therapy textbook. Don't they look just so happy?
Then, I put two sheets of brass together with one of my pattern stars. Then I drew the detail I wanted on the pattern. Notice that other than tape I completely forgot adhesive. Yes, that will come back to bite me. 
I've used Matthew's snips to cut out the star (with some interesting and large scraps to play with!!) and have begun sawing out the scrollwork. The problem is that we didn't have a drill bit smaller than 1/18 so I have to get rid of the ugly holes. I also have had some creative jewelry saw positioning since the star itself is wider than the saw and I have to reach a few things. I've almost finished sawing out two of the tips and hope to finish the rest before Thursday so I can give Matthew back his tools when I see Kristen to bake cookies! More pictures to come!
I've used Matthew's snips to cut out the star (with some interesting and large scraps to play with!!) and have begun sawing out the scrollwork. The problem is that we didn't have a drill bit smaller than 1/18 so I have to get rid of the ugly holes. I also have had some creative jewelry saw positioning since the star itself is wider than the saw and I have to reach a few things. I've almost finished sawing out two of the tips and hope to finish the rest before Thursday so I can give Matthew back his tools when I see Kristen to bake cookies! More pictures to come!Kate
1 comment:
very awesome idea! looks like you're moving along fine. I normally have an opinion about pretty much everything - so give me a holler if you want. ;-) I think you can email me through my blogger profile.
Janice
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