What's On My Workbench....and RAW

a steampunk pendant....vintage watch workings with hand cast by me bronze wings.  The ceramic skull with glasses will be set in the watch part bezel with concrete.  The had I got...uh, somewhere.  The 2 swarovsky crystals are actually deep red, but they look purple in the pic. I'm still trying to figure out how to finish off the back....

I needed to flatten the back of the ceramic skull, and to put a divot on the back of it to accomodate the screw head that is holding on the bezel the skull will be mounted into.  I'd tried to drill one of these skulls before - but I found it was impossible - I tried regualr drills, titanium drill, grinding wheels, diamond wheels, sand paper....nothing would penetrate - it was too hard.  Yesterday I received my monthly copy of Jewelrt Artist" magazine....and it had a fabulous article on carving stones with a dremel and diamond burs.  It said that diamond burs HAD TO BE USED with water.  I did not know this.  and guess what?  It worked!  See the tiny skull in the bottom left of the above picture?  I was able to grind it flat and put the divot in  it......in under a minute.  Who Knew?

OK...more dremel info.. I have several dremels...my favorites are the stylus - a small battery operated one with a handle, and a bigger one - it's the one in the picture - that is also battery operated.  The bigger one has a lithium ion battery that lasts a long time - it also has a much stronger motor.  My DH got me 2 wonderful attachments.....One is a double LED LIGHT that screws into the dremel ...it works off the rotation of the tool itself, so it makes it's own power and turns on automatically when you turn on the dremel. It's the gray thing you see in the above picture behind the chuck...you can see the 2 LED's.   The other attachment - and I truly don't know how I worked without it - it's called a dremel multipro keyless  chuck....it allows you to attach any rotary tool attachment without changing the collets to accomodate the various bit shank sizes. What a time saver!  That's a picture of it in the pic above - next to the light, with the diamond bit in it.

I was supposed to be doing an inchie a week and a ring a week (RAW).  I am still behind one inchie, but I got caught up on my rings.

RAW Week 2 - polymer clay - " holding hands".  Ring shank has a molded chain design but you can't see it in the pic.

RAW Week 3 -sea urchin, sterling silver bezel, pearl, found finding for ring base....

RAW Week 4 - Tiny brass spoon formed into a ring with a glass eye.  Notice that I CRACKED the glass eye when I bore down too hard on the bolt that attaches the eye to the ring...I'll have to remove it and add a new eye....but al least this time hallowing out the back of the glass to match the ring curve will be easier now that I know to use WATER with the diamond burs.