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Bernie Sanders Head Badges!

I am feeling the Bern!  So much so that I thought I would make a Bernie Sanders head badge so that bicyclists for Bernie can show their love of this amazing candidate.

 

The first step was to carve them out of wax.

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Then I molded that wax carving into some special high temp silicone. I then cast them in either tin or pewter (each and every one comes out a little different, so far the tin ones seem a bit more shiny).  The results have been pretty awesome!

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They can be bent to fit on a bike, or left flat if you just want a shiny Bernie Sanders paperweight.

 

Every one comes out a bit different, but I like that, I might experiment with polishing them, but pewter and tin are very soft metals, and I don’t know if I have anything that delicate.

 

I am going to be selling them here, 27 dollars of every sale will be donated to the Sanders campaign.  Get your own!

 

 

 

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Making A Corn Cog Head Badge

Got this awesome design from a client, I was inspired to try something a little different, a multi-layered riveted design.  It turned out better than I would have thought!  I also did something different than I normally do and documented the process.

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Start with a sheet of 22g brass and the design broken out into the layers.

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Using rubber cement I attached the cut out designs on the brass sheet.

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After they were cut out I filed and cut out the interior of the design, what you can’t see in this picture (but you can in the following) is where I etched the lines of the design in and filed the kernels of the corn.

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the final cut outs with etching and filing.

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Dry fitting getting ready for the riveting.

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I did the rivets in two layers for strength and also so that they would fit better into the final design.  I didn’t want rivets showing on every layer, but also wanted it to be strong, so there are three “hidden” rivets.

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Five layers of brass is almost impossible to bend, so I annealed the metal to make it softer.

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after a quick bath in the pickle it came out much softer and I was able to hammer it into shape with a plastic mallet.  It also however is ugly from the fire scale.

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After the initial hand polishing to get all the fire scale off and start the buffing process.

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After an hour in the tumbler and some more buffing on a wheel it now has a high shine and glows gloriously in the sun.  I really like the way this design came out, and it was fun using rivets instead of solder for a change.

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Custom Silver Star Trek Headbadge

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When I got the specs for this I knew it was going to be a larger badge, and the client wanted it in silver, so I was stoked to see a nice big badge with some classy materials.  I really like the way it came out, with the layers, and the oxide providing some nice depth.  It feels good in your hand like a little shield, and the star trek logo on the front fits well and is centered well.  The client designed it, I just fashioned it, but I am stoked the way it came out.