Pocket watch fun.... and the cabochon has it!

My glass cabs glued onto the little pocket watches

Well, whilst conducting my usual late night "surf the large chinese supplier website because I can't sleep yet" internet use, I came across some really cute little pocket watches with rather cheesy porcelain cabochons installed on the front.   I thought to myself that these would look so much better with a nice glass cab on there and decided to dip my toes into negotiating with the chinese supplier to get something custom made..... little did I know that about 1 million (prob only really 50, just felt like more) emails later, it looked like they have made up exactly what I wanted.

So I paid, stalked the postage tracker until they arrived into my hot little hand......... Cute, great.... but not exactly what I wanted.  The big issue I had was that the surface of the watch where the cab gets glued is not exactly flat.... not even a little bit flat... bugger!

The domed surface for the cab to go onto

Well after some brain storming with a lampy friend Darcy we came up with the cunning plan to remove the front from one of the watches and try using it as a push mold on the back of a hot glass cab to give the perfect shape to cab for annealing and then later gluing on... it was a plan!



Watch I "killed" to give me the cab mold

So, even though i was still feeling a little bit under the weather, I fired up the kiln yesterday and tried out the idea using both borosilicate glass and then some soft glass.  I used the boro first (because the kiln was ramped up hotter to start with this, then I ramp it down later to the soft glass annealing temp).  I made up the cab using a slice of my recent boro butterfly cane in a large diameter... the cab was looking nice, so I heated the backside up nice and hot and plunged it onto the "mold".  First off there was some really nasty smells.... then a spitting sound and then when I lifted the cab up, this is what I found!

melted mold after first use

There is no doubt.... I killed it!  Clearly not made of stainless steel, but probably zinc or something.  In any case I was grateful for the good ventilation in my workspace thats for sure.

After this cab, I ramped down the kiln and resorted to plan B..... shaping the back of the cab by hand and just using this mold as a guage for diameter.  I tried using the stumpshaper (the curved bit) to make a concave back..... nope, not neat enough.  Then I tried using the back of a teaspoon and .....yahooo, it worked.  This option works, but is not completely ideal I do admit.  I am thinking of getting myself some graphite and sanding it into the shape I want and using that as a mold which would be MUCH better I reckon.

Some of the tips I got from this first batch other than shaping the back for gluing.... keep it slightly smaller than you think.... heat the back of the cab quite hard and then press down to give slimmer sides which sit nicely on the watch front.   I am thinking there are a complete raft of interesting things that can be done with these watches.... it has been a difficult track to run, but worth it in the end!

Butterfly cab glued onto pocket watch front.... this one was a little bit thick around the edges as my first one

Murrini then beads... then murrini again :-)

Well I have to say that I am a little bit pleased with myself today.  I exercised some self control yesterday and finally got the wing cane pull done for my next dragonfly murrini (the complex wings with transparent lobes types).  Today i will at least put the half cane together and maybe even the full dragonfly cane if I am lucky!  I am really happy with the component cane and did the same graduated transparent blue I did the first time, boy was I tempted to go for a green transparent, although I think next one might be purple which I reckon would look very nice.  One of the really good things about making the same complex cane is learning from past mistakes, the first dragonfly cane had a rather strange little bum cheek sort of arrangement going on, but this time I shall make the transition smoother I am sure.  I will try to get a pic or two later today if I can get some nice slices of wing.

The other thing I did with varying degrees of success last night was make a few beads for my Etsy store and a couple orders.  More of the burlesque ladies popped out of the kiln this morning... mostly not quite good enough, but one or two were ok!

About 18 months or so ago I did some experiments with fully encasing wheels and cogs from old watch parts.  I found that if I was very careful about not heating that particular area again after encasing then they turned out fabulous and looked just like cogs and wheels floating inside the transparent glass.  I thought I would try out some surface stuff (inspired by a lovely Australian Lampwork artist Sally Shepherd http://www.happilyeverartist.com/ who has recently been working with surface design using steampunk style parts) in addition to my usual encasements.  I used Aurae over clear and reduced a little for the strange little robot in the middle of this pic of last nights work!  The watch parts I used for the eyes had quite long protuberances on the back which came in handy for inserting firmly into the glass.... I quite like it, but I have seem MUCH better robot beads about I am sure!

The other thing I experimented on last night was using some enamels to make stockings on my burlesque beads.... I am quite happy with them on this purple lady, although next time I will use ribbons rather than the dots for studs on the suspenders.... please excuse the bead release residue on the mandrel, I was too keen to take a pic whilst the sun was out to wait and take them all of the mandrels and clean them first!

No raging at the machine here - clockwork multicolour

Yep, it was another one of those ideas in the night that I just had to try. Some time ago I had bought myself a couple tiny containers of old watch parts, I have never really been into the steampunk stuff, but it did catch my eye. I thought that it could be really interesting to try encasing some cogs etc. into some clear glass and that is how this set of beads came about. I made the four square beads with one cog or watch bit in each window, some of them I have managed to overheat a little and they get a bit ...... well, bubbly. I was really happy with them going into the kiln and thought I would make a larger focal round bead with a few parts encased into it which I am really happy with. The surrounding glass was using a Reichenbach glass called multicolour......Its lovely stuff!

I strung it together this morning and thankfully it sits really nicely, so I might even keep it myself..... I always seem to say that, but end up selling or giving them away anyway!!!!