Hephaestus was the Greek god of fire and of craftsmen, son of Zeus and Hera. Equivalent Roman god was Vulcan. Either way he was a divine metalworker and so linked to furnaces and all that thumping and shaping of hot metal.
Well, as part of the course there are many aspects of Hephaestus/Vulcan from working fine metals in jewellery, to doing the rougher stuff with iron & steel, to welding and to casting by pouring molten metals. So far done a bit of most of the above except the rougher stuff with iron & steel.
We have done soldering of simple shapes and then press forming pieces to be soldered together [the little discs in the second picture]. Everything has been on a small scale as it has primarily been about jewellery techniques.
We’ve done some enamelling [back is the bluish side but still lovely] and fine sawing.
We’ve made our very own jump rings [used in chains and very massed produced these days], which I soldered badly.
And we made band rings [you should be able to see the fine solder line in the copper].
More to come on clay and wood and metal…… [and the first project too]! Cheers, Vincent
