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san p

cast glass pachanoi's

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I want one, are they for sale?

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That's so awesome!

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Pretty life-like.... color and shape :). Great job !

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Just looked at your gallery images san p....I thought it was you who was doing the translucent ones hey. I don't suppose you ever cast some with some LEDs in them. Could always drill a hole and add the light after.

You know you could sell these at festivals and things .

:)

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great job!!

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Just looked at your gallery images san p....I thought it was you who was doing the translucent ones hey. I don't suppose you ever cast some with some LEDs in them. Could always drill a hole and add the light after. You know you could sell these at festivals and things . :)

ooh like cast glass cacti mood-lighting?

quite an idea,,

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reall nice work though, how bout a loph one?

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thanks for the comments guys glad you like them :)

I want one, are they for sale?

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.

Just looked at your gallery images san p....I thought it was you who was doing the translucent ones hey. I don't suppose you ever cast some with some LEDs in them. Could always drill a hole and add the light after. You know you could sell these at festivals and things . :)

hi amazonian,i still havnt done the led thing with one yet but its definitly a cool idea!

reall nice work though, how bout a loph one?

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.

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Wow, they look absolutely fantastic :worship::worship::worship:

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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 :devil:

attachicon.gifCIMG8086.JPG attachicon.gifCIMG8088.JPG

Very cool bro, talent.

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ver well done!! what you use to cast the glass? casting investment?

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hope you don't mind me asking but how do you make the mold?

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i want one! very cool man!

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ver well done!! what you use to cast the glass? casting investment?

hope you don't mind me asking but how do you make the mold?

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. :)

Edited by san p
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ok thanks. thought as much. if there is some breakage going on, and you are using nails for the spikes in the final piece this is due to the differing COE of nails to the glass. i was thinking the nails were glass too, and wondered how you got them to seat into the glass with their different colors. now i see. i recon a better way to do it, without torch-work, would be to cast the spikes too from glass then perhaps drill each of them into the glass under water with diamond bit. holding them in with epoxy inside where they cant be seen =) this is what i will try to do as i try to make such wonderful work myself. im just starting to make my tophat glass kiln now with PID controller.

if you continue to use nails as spikes, perhaps having many "anneal" hold times in your ramping down of temps, rather than just bring it down over such long time. glass should be fired for about 14hours for standard system 96 glass. 5 days is huge power cunsumption at australian prices. of course i dont expect anywhere else on earth to charge so much for power as greedy australia does =(

nice work mate, there sure is allot of tallent in NZ! i look forward to seeing what else you come up with as much as trying to replicate this work myself. you have provided such inspiration to us all! thank you.

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i think a better choice for the hard part, the spines could be to make them from gold. by investment casting and glue them onto the glasswork. i mean, these are sacred cactus after all are they not. priceless... the glue (JB WELD) would give them that grey color round the spikes just like real aroles =) your thoughts? apon looking at my puruvians i see even from gold they are not going to be easy to make. i hope to get my kiln done soon and try this so as to be able to try this and that and bounce idea's off you too as together we share our knowlege and bring about some of the finest art the world has seen yet.

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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.

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lead crystal glass you say? had to go one step better didnt you! just had to didnt you..

lol. jokes. nice mate =)

now i understand your long firing's. it is faster to cast them in for sure. although i personaly dont like that idea as this is how jewelery is made these days, they cast diamonds into rings like this to save on labor costs, and while it works rather well it has limits to bright cutting after etc. not an issue with such cactus molds though i know. something just seems cheap to me about the idea. it looses that personal touch i think.

as far as getting spines made by another, no chance. LOL. i am working with silver and gold too, and am trying to recycle such metals from electronic scrap i come accross also. i tried my first gold drop the other day, FAILED LOL. i didnt get the ph right and de-nox the solution did i.. learning curve..(trying to work out how to recover it now) i made a birkeland eyed reactor from lab glass, custom made reactor, and a modded ZVS driver / flyback system that bubbles the nitric dioxide through water in two 1L earlenmeyer flasks in a refridgerated bath system with built in magnetic stirrers etc. it works to make the nitric acid i need for recovering metals. so, i NEVER use a company as in my country, many business are little more than criminals. (charging over 3 times the retail value and stealing when it comes to metal recycle jobs, my jeweler friend looses often to the tune of $800.00 per lot. then has to buy metal back at further high cost (spot price)). the issue im seeing with molding the spines is where they are like clusters of 5 or so. i think it could be done but will be a challenge.

seeing as how you have much tallent and expirience working / making molds from rubber for wax models, do you think you could remove the spine clusters from rubber, and the wax ones to follow without breaking? im thinking i might have to work them in the normal way rather than cast them or just carve them direct from wax). anyhow, i finally found this awesome chick making a cabbage leaf. have you seen this. - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ivTt2Uc6zew wonderful!

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oh, and the color you have achieved in those cactus is just PERFECT! everytime i look at them, im amazed at just how sopt on they are.. knowing how greens, like reds can change color rather allot during firing and how when working with frits etc. the color changes allot when formed without the many edges and air trapped in the frits while making color choices. thats a tallent im yet to learn. anyhow, well done once again!

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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) :)

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hmm, thats a good point, though i do have concerns about playing with leaded glass. i mate of mine says that such glass is great to learn flint knapping on =P though i just use the abundant amount of opal waste i have =) i wonder if you could add color to it?

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wow these pieces re nice!
wish i had the time and money to ave a hobby like this, when you have a couple for sale mate let me know.
cheers!

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Awesome work & creativity mate! Id definately buy a few of these, would love to see some lophs amongst other cacti! Crested and monstrose forms would be a big hit too!

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