The jewellery workshop classes chose to have some rings and pendents cast in silicon bronze, because I recently took a shipment of some reasonably cheap silicon bronze rod. This is in contrast to the increasing difficulty of getting my usual art bronze (a leaded tin bronze known as LG4). The item shown left is my small gas furnace for melting silver or bronzes; the burner is on the far left, the thin rod in the foreground is a small thermocouple and the woolly hat is a home-made ceramic fibre blanket 'lid'.
Left is a silicon bronze pendant made by Wendy Mitchell; next an etched sterling-silver oval pendant made by Kathryn Crooks; a silicon bronze ring by Anna Stevens; and finally a pewter pig made by Alan Reynolds (still with sprues and crucible attached). All except the etched pendant were made originally in wax and cast with the lost wax process.
