Speaking of the collar..

Oh this thing gave me so much grief!It turned out to be every bit as difficult to replicate as my tech had expected it to be, and more. I was a lot more optimistic about molding, injecting and casting this large, yet extremely thin filigree design than him, and boy, did I get a reality check. The collar was fighting us at every stage of the process! It didn't want to get made. After two months or so, of fiddling with the molds, altering wax injections, going back and forth, trying this and that and watching it fail again and again, I must confess-a week ago I almost gave up.It's not like me to drop an ambitious project, especially after investing hundreds of dollars and countless hours of my time to see it get to this stage. I believe there is a key to unlocking every problem, but that thing almost did me in. I was beginning to consider that my design was fundamentally flawed and un-castable and that finding a key to getting it made meant going back to square one and re-designing the structure. Yet, I was so mentally exhausted from trying to figure it all out that I knew if I abandoned this approach, it would be some time before I returned to it. So, we made a last ditch effort in trying to save it, adjusted one factor in the casting process and......it came out perfectly. The key was found.I haven't had a chance to get it cleaned and polished yet. Metals don't come out all bright and shiny after casting, and look very little like the precious things they really are. Just like unpolished gems. It often requires hours to clean and polish silver to a bright shine after it's been cast. I can't wait to see this piece finished. Meanwhile I'm going to try to cast a couple more and see if it was just blind luck they turned out this time or if the formula actually works.