Pewter casting, part 2
Well, I am now most of the way towards having some Ancient Chinese style pewter "rope money" coins.
As you can see, I have started penciling the chinese characters that will be on the coins. At this stage, the plan is to have "Hanbal" on one side and "Eighth Baron" on the other. On the right side above is where I am currently writing the Eighth Baron text (translated off the web - traditional Chinese - probably not perfect but good enough). Below are examples of the progress of my carving. Please note that for all of them, the spru is the top (even if pictured around the wrong way).
The first, which look like a pair of Angels wings, showed that the coin carved area wasn't deep enough.
The second was after more carving, today, and shows more of an idea of what I am aiming for. You will note the square in the middle is still quite large. Still a bit too thin though.
The 3rd coin shows further work on deepening the carved area - complete
coin but surface still bearing many tool marks. You can also see that the square in the middle has been reduced in size.
The 4th & 5th pictures are the front & back of the last coin poured today.
You can see that I now have a defined rim around the coin both front & back, as well as around the square in the middle.
I am now going to add chinese characters front & back. Ambitious for my 2nd piece ever, but I think I will succeed. I'm running out of time to do it all over again - as I need to have the coins completed for our Baronial Investiture.
As you can see, I have started penciling the chinese characters that will be on the coins. At this stage, the plan is to have "Hanbal" on one side and "Eighth Baron" on the other. On the right side above is where I am currently writing the Eighth Baron text (translated off the web - traditional Chinese - probably not perfect but good enough). Below are examples of the progress of my carving. Please note that for all of them, the spru is the top (even if pictured around the wrong way).
The first, which look like a pair of Angels wings, showed that the coin carved area wasn't deep enough.
The second was after more carving, today, and shows more of an idea of what I am aiming for. You will note the square in the middle is still quite large. Still a bit too thin though.
The 3rd coin shows further work on deepening the carved area - complete
coin but surface still bearing many tool marks. You can also see that the square in the middle has been reduced in size.The 4th & 5th pictures are the front & back of the last coin poured today.
You can see that I now have a defined rim around the coin both front & back, as well as around the square in the middle.
I am now going to add chinese characters front & back. Ambitious for my 2nd piece ever, but I think I will succeed. I'm running out of time to do it all over again - as I need to have the coins completed for our Baronial Investiture.
Labels: Pewter casting, SCA
posted by Hanbal at 4:32 pm
3 Comments:
According to this (http://www.ancientscripts.com/chinese.html) as long as you use traditional and not simplified Chinese characters as you plan, there shouldn't be much difference between your characters and those used as early as 500 BC.
Obviously, there's been some evolution, but one can hope that the characters you're using some of the ones that remained stable.
Yep Don, that was my understanding and intention.
Hanbal, the progress you show is very impressive - even more so when you do it by trial and error, without the guidance of a master in that area. The last attempt looks not bad at all and I just hope that time does not run out on you ... as it always seems to happen at such a project ... :).
Falko
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