san p

only had one taker so far have heaps of these so ill make them groups of 9 seedlings if that helps find them a new home.priced shipping at $6 nz wide.

hi,ive got 3 lots of 5 scop x pach seedlings that have sitting around unloved to give away if anyones interested? (you pay shipping) the seed came from a cross bit did years ago. also got one of these glass pachanoi ornaments to give away (your choice of colour) to any member who can help me out on finding a certain ethno im currently struggling to find. (pm for details)

if your ever recycling e waste from tvs make sure you keep the tv screens,thats what weve been doing.its lead glass and great for casting..with lead crystal casting glass costing $30 a kg and a large tv screen weighing up to 6kgs its a great way to keep your costs down if you happy with just one colour (smokey grey)

hi ghostly,good shit stoked to hear your right into your glass aswell the ramp up and ramp down times on this casting were all done to the book based on the weight and thickness of the piece calculated from info from a chart provided by the glass manufacturer. we dont used spectrum 96 we use lead crystal glass made in nz by gaffer.copper has one of the closest coe to glass so its pretty safe to use for mixed media casting,im pretty certain the reason i had some problems on one piece was because of the way a few nails had been pushed into the was (air cavitys sounding them) so im going continue experimenting with casting them in.its some much more time efficient to cast them in than it is to drill and glue plus i like the idea of them being cast in rather than glued aswell. yeah i agree using semi precious and precious metals is a great idea,and its actually pretty cheap to send waxes away to be cast in sterling silver by a jewellery making outfit so keep that in mind too theres a member on here who if i remember right works at a forgery and was casting brass peyotes grafted onto pere's a while back there where really really nice.

using the age old lost wax technique first i made a silcon rubber mold of the pedro,then poured wax into the silicon..after the wax is set it can be removed from the silicon and the nails were carefully pushed into the wax. the wax is then secured to a board by pushing it onto a nail thats nailed through the board and walls are made around the wax..then a plaster and silica powder mixture is poured around the wax and allowd to set..then the wax is steamed out of the mold using a wallpaper steamer. then you calculate the amount of glass you need using a formula based on the weight of your wax and the weight of your glass and set the glass up in some tericotta pots above the mold inside the kiln.bring the the temp up to 850deg celcius and let it soak at that temp for 3 hours,after that the glass has to be brought down to room temp over 5 days so it doesnt crack. after the plaster mold has been fired it breaks apart really easily,and if you soak it in water it just disolves.then all thats left is to clean off the remaining plaster left on the glass.

thanks for the comments guys glad you like them hi quarterflesh,to be honest they are abit rough all round and littlered with small faults (including slug damaged from the original cutting the mould was made from haha.. one turned out pretty clean but another lost a spine and a small chip of glass while annealing,and has another spine with a small fractured piece of glass behind it so i wouldnt really feel right selling it unless the person looked at them in person and was happy with the piece first. hi amazonian,i still havnt done the led thing with one yet but its definitly a cool idea! thanks qualia,yep lophs definitly the one i want to do next! aswell as making a larger san pedro mold,im thinking maybe a small stump with a few pups coming off it.

heres some pics of my 2 latest pieces. ive cast these before but this time i cast the glass around some copper nails to give them a nice single spine foe that mean look

heres some pics of my 2 latest pieces. ive cast these before but this time i cast the glass around some copper nails to give them a nice single spine foe that mean look

just beautiful

a kiwi is a new zealander..so your nz cacuts are kiwi cactus

hows your kiwi cactus growing mutant,im jealous of the growth rates you had last update

only thing i could suggest is,if you dont already own a good juicer get one!

legeend,cheers centipede

about a year ago i decided to start living in my van,so i sold and gifted pretty much my entire mexican miniture collection away because i could no longer give them the proper attension they needed. if theres any kiwi members out there that have a turb, ario or loph that they could bring themselves to part with please pm me,im more than willing to pay top dollor for a desent specimen. or if your happy to wait a month or so i could just replace it with an exact replica cast in glass. cheers p.s- im down south working for the next few weeks so if any of you deep south cactus addicts want to catch up for a j and show off your collections please get in contact

what a mission,good effort bit! have you had a look at PDs property on his gallery?hes my hero:)