Metalsmithing

Inlay Adventures – Part Two

March 5, 2020

As you will know, trying out new creative techniques can be both fun and frustrating all at the same time. As adults we often seem to set ourselves unrealistic expectations of obtaining a perfect result first time around. Unreasonably comparing our abilities as beginners to those of the masters.

To help to take the pressure off and give us a greater chance of success, it’s worthwhile taking time to ‘play’. Make models, build prototypes and test pieces. Just using the word ‘test’ or ‘experiment‘ takes away all the expectations of perfection, allowing us freedom to explore, create and learn.

With this in mind I’ve been continuing my experiments with metal inlay. This time I’ve been having a go at inlaying metal in a straight line into a flat sheet of metal. (Believe me when I say it’s much harder than it sounds!)

Whilst these are just my own personal notes, I thought they might be of some interest to you. Perhaps you like the idea of having a go too, or maybe you’re just curious to know more about metal inlay.

One thing’s for sure, running experiments enables you to learn so much more, building on failures being a very crucial part of the process.

These are my findings.

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Copying a Pattern onto Metal

January 29, 2020

As part of my experiments with metal inlay I’ve been investigating a different way of transferring a pattern or design onto metal ready for you to cut out.

I’m sharing this with you in case you’d not heard of this method and wanted to give it a try yourself.

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Metal Inlay

January 23, 2020

Inlay Adventures – Part One

If you’re anything like me you enjoy trying new creative techniques. It’s fun and very much part of the creative process, but can also be frustrating and time consuming.

Recently I’ve been taking time to explore new techniques in more detail before diving in to make a finished product. This is proving a great way to experiment and learn a skill with minimal risk and it’s much less daunting. An easy way to learn by my mistakes and build on my failures. To see what works and what doesn’t, what I like and what I’m not so keen on.

Rather than keeping this all to myself I thought I’d write my notes as blog posts on the off chance that you might be interested. Maybe you’d like to try the techniques too, or perhaps you’re just interested to see a glimpse of what goes on behind the scenes.

These are not designed to be detailed notes, nor will I promise lots of pretty pictures, just an outline of what I’ve been working on and my findings. I hope they will be of some interest to you.

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