Happy holidays, everyone. I've got a non-audio shameless plug for you all this season. A few days ago, I mailed out a few Christmas gifts, but before I boxed them up I took a minute to photograph a couple of them (using an iPhone, so this is not the highest-quality photography on earth). It's not home theater related and you can't order them online (yet), but I thought the folks around here might enjoy it.
You can click on the picture for a larger version.
These are two of a series of switch plates that my dad has started selling through the gift shop at the
National Ornamental Metal Museum . You may have seen me post about this museum in the past, as my family has been involved with it since before it opened its doors in 1978 (I remember walking through the main building when there were still leaves on the floor). My dad was the master smith at Repair Days in 2006 (see the art show link at the bottom of my sig), and after he retired from teaching at the Memphis College of Art in 2007 he started looking for some projects to occupy his time. The result was a home-made cope and drag sand casting setup that was used to start making switch plates.
The process goes something like this: make a master out of plastic and metal (or, in the case of the one on the right, plastic, metal, and some very freshly-cut plant life) and place that in the sand casting rig. Remove the master and add molten pewter to the resulting void in the sand to produce a pewter casting. Take the best-looking pewter castings and use them to pull high-heat reusable molds that can accept molden pewter, and then use those high-heat molds to make multiple copies of the cast master. He is also using this process to make a series of
Jefferson cups .
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