I have been procrastinating for the last few years about making a pewter drinking vessel, and a friend has given me a project in order to actually force me to get something done. It's taken a while, and I needed the help of my housemate and his wood lathe to construct the mould. I have chosen wood for the mould as I have used it before for nice quick moulds that allow a smaller gap between the walls of the mould and therefor a thinner wall to the cast item.



This is the first casting, future castings should be about 50% taller and have a much smoother finish. Tomorrow I'll be re-facing a small anvil so that I can have a solid horn to plannish them from. This will form the basis for a series of decorated drinking vessels which will all be decorated by hand using a technique of relief carving and shaping. Anyway, enough of the further procrastination.

To create this drinking vessel I asked my housemate to use his lathe to create a shaped hole in the end of a block of wood. This hole was the shape and size of the outside of the cast vessel. He then made an insert which forms the interior of the vessel, leaving enough of a gap between the two to allow molten pewter to set between them.

I then took the outside mould and cut it with a thin saw right through the middle, this is to allow easier removal of the casting. I also used a very thin coating of silicon sealant and smeared it into the woodgrain, this was done for a few reasons, firstly to allow easier removal of the casting from the mould as the silicon is a rubbery finish that moves, secondly it allows for a smoother finish on the wooden mould (whilst the wood would be an OK finish itself the silicon allows for it to be smoother), and lastly it also puts a protective layer between the hot molten pewter and the wood (the wood can take the heat for small amounts of time, but the silicon provides just that little bit of extra heat protection).

With both parts of the mould complete it was time to cast my first vessel. Not knowing how much pewter was needed to complete the casting, I just used what I had in the pot, and will make adjustments of quantity nest time. Having clamped both halves of the exterior mould together, I poured in the molten pewter I had straigt into the gap, I then picked up the interior mould and carefully pushed it into the pool of pewter in the bottom of the external mould. The molten pewter rose up the sides of the mould until the interior mould was fully inserted, though there was not enough pewter to make it rise all the way to the top of the mould. This took a few minutes to set, in the meantime I had to hold the interior mould in place.

Next time I'll be adding more pewter to the pot. The current vessel weighs 200g, so I estimate that 300g - 350g of pewter should make one full sized vessel. And the next one will be the basis for the Lochac Period IKAC prize I offered earlier in the year.