Thanks Marilyn -- but wow, 24 ga is thin???? oy. If I thought this was challenging - what happens when I go thicker? What ga is typical to use?

I'm looking into other pitches - I'll keep the one you mentioned in mind.

I'll take this little guy back to the pot tonight and see what happens if I try to smooth him out more.

~Janice

A thicker gage gives you more metal to move around. You are streching them metal when you push it down into the pitch and with thin metal, you can tear though despite annealing often. It also depends on how high you want the relief to be. If I want fairly high relief, I use 18 gage copper. Silver is a bit less malible than the copper so I tend to work more with 20 gage but I would also be using it for jewelry and would want it to be flatter.

marilyn

with not too much height...so maybe I can afford to be thin. Then again, I'd like the finished piece - when I get that far, to have some weight. So I guess I'll practice some more with copper in 24, then bump up to 20 and see how it goes before moving into sterling.

Thanks again for the nudges in the right direction. :)

~Janice

I got timed out in my reply to you.

I was saying something about probably practicing some more in 24 ga copper then bumping up to 20 and then moving into maybe 22 sterling until I get better.

I don't need a lot of height for small jewelry that I see myself doing, but I do want some weight in the finished piece and this little pumpkin just has no weight at all.

Thanks for the nudge in the right direction!
~Janice

How does that translate to gauge??

Help? !

~Janice

Ounces Nearest (B&S)Gauge No.
24oz. --------------- 20ga.
32oz. --------------- 17ga.

Hmmmm, the pumkpin is probably about 1.5", the entire piece of metal was maybe 2x2"....I'm not sure how deep the relief actually is...I'll see if I can get some sort of measurement tonight.

~Janice
www.doxallo.com

Janice,
Okay if you want to call out copper in gage than 18 gage is close to 24 oz. But since I am an old copper worker and when I buy copper the sheets are big and tnen you look at how much a square foot of copper weights therefore the ounces.
I thought by looking at your pumpkin that maybe six inchs I guess being a guy we mostly think in bigger is better ;o)

warren
http://www.flickr.com/photos/metal_recipes/

Ha ha! Warren!! lol

The pumpkin is about the general size I mentioned and the depth is about a half a centimeter. I went over it a bit more last night so it may be raised a bit more now though. I will take a pic tonight and post it. :)

The largest sheet in copper which I buy copper is 12x12 squares normally, sterling in considerably smaller increments. ;-) Since I work fairly small the smaller sheets are more manageable. :)

~Janice

picked up on this thread. Did you continue to practice in copper? How are you progressing?