Elleth's Pendants for Yule
Posted: Tue Dec 22, 2020 7:40 pm
This is a bit different, since these accessories are made with modern processes and not particularly period-appropriate, but they achieved a look that I've been dreaming of for some time and finally executed to a surprising degree of efficacy.
I had to brainstorm a bit on Elleth's requests for this year's gift exchange:
I started with materials that would evoke a feeling of antiquity. We have quite a bit of old, weatherbeaten black walnut lying around, so I selected a few chunks of that.
Cut into workable blocks, it looked astonishingly like chocolate brownies...
These blocks I wrapped in aluminum foil to make small, individual basins. I mixed up some slow-cure 2 part woodworking epoxy with gold mica powder mixed into it and poured it over the blocks. To ensure complete penetration into the cracks, I put them into my vacuum chamber and pulled a hard vacuum, yielding a rather spectacular effect of bubbling, molten gold.
with all the air pulled out of the cracks and crevices, I let atmospheric pressure back in, driving the resin deep into the voids of the wood.
Once the epoxy was cured, I cut off the excess resin that had set up on the surface, revealing a very nice effect of golden veins in the dark walnut.
You can see I experimented with other powders--the silver sounded good in theory, but its luster was lost when I sanded down the resin, and the resulting white infill looked more like fungus or old paint than silver, so the gold was what I ultimately went with.
Now that the blocks were impregnated with resin, I could shave off the cracked veneer surface and have it remain cohesive, where it would have fallen to bits before the addition of the resin. This yielded a fair few thin blanks that I could carve up. I engraved a few designs into the surfaces and repeated the resin process, but with white this time. The white resin sank into the relief carving and yielded an ivory inlay effect. I then polished the wood and sealed it with beeswax to bring out the dark color of the black walnut.
I made sure they fit the cordage Elleth had made for things I've purchased from her in the past, then mailed off the pendants!
Ultimately, I liked the effect this technique produced. There's also a bit of an easter egg--many of the artifacts of old Arnor will shine or glow in the right circumstances. This was a challenging effect to produce, and I didn't pursue it in both batches, but the swan, at least, will give a faint light if brought in from the sunlight.
I had to brainstorm a bit on Elleth's requests for this year's gift exchange:
So I wanted to make something that felt old, and maybe with a craftsmanship that would be a bit alien to the Third Age.Elleth wrote:What I'd love though is relics or trinkets of other peoples or especially the glory days of old Arnor - perhaps something that might have been pulled from a ruin. An elven jewel? A carved stone? A set of rubbings from a memorial?
I started with materials that would evoke a feeling of antiquity. We have quite a bit of old, weatherbeaten black walnut lying around, so I selected a few chunks of that.
Cut into workable blocks, it looked astonishingly like chocolate brownies...
These blocks I wrapped in aluminum foil to make small, individual basins. I mixed up some slow-cure 2 part woodworking epoxy with gold mica powder mixed into it and poured it over the blocks. To ensure complete penetration into the cracks, I put them into my vacuum chamber and pulled a hard vacuum, yielding a rather spectacular effect of bubbling, molten gold.
with all the air pulled out of the cracks and crevices, I let atmospheric pressure back in, driving the resin deep into the voids of the wood.
Once the epoxy was cured, I cut off the excess resin that had set up on the surface, revealing a very nice effect of golden veins in the dark walnut.
You can see I experimented with other powders--the silver sounded good in theory, but its luster was lost when I sanded down the resin, and the resulting white infill looked more like fungus or old paint than silver, so the gold was what I ultimately went with.
Now that the blocks were impregnated with resin, I could shave off the cracked veneer surface and have it remain cohesive, where it would have fallen to bits before the addition of the resin. This yielded a fair few thin blanks that I could carve up. I engraved a few designs into the surfaces and repeated the resin process, but with white this time. The white resin sank into the relief carving and yielded an ivory inlay effect. I then polished the wood and sealed it with beeswax to bring out the dark color of the black walnut.
I made sure they fit the cordage Elleth had made for things I've purchased from her in the past, then mailed off the pendants!
Ultimately, I liked the effect this technique produced. There's also a bit of an easter egg--many of the artifacts of old Arnor will shine or glow in the right circumstances. This was a challenging effect to produce, and I didn't pursue it in both batches, but the swan, at least, will give a faint light if brought in from the sunlight.
