Calling Mr. V Lapid

[minousbijoux]

Hi VL:

So I've recently read a few threads where you shown a collection of stones you've collected with the intention of making a necklace, or you have documented the journey of creating a ring, but in each case I'm not sure I've seen your final product. You have many ideas, and have shown a good number of stones you've purchased. Would you mind doing a thread on some of your finished work, perhaps a necklace (or two or three) and some of your rings? I know a lot of thought goes into your productions and I imagine they must be lovely. Please share

TIA and if I've put you on the spot at all, you can pretend you just didn't see this thread

 

[Imdanny]

Well I saw it, and I had read your screen name as "Vapid Land" which I took to be a dark and ironic statement. Oh, and I thought you were, sorry, just assumed, a woman. Yes, I'm an idiot and I need glasses.

 

[Arkteia]

Well I saw it, and I had read your screen name as "Vapid Land" which I took to be a dark and ironic statement. Oh, and I thought you were, sorry, just assumed, a woman. Yes, I'm an idiot and I need glasses.

V.L. is mentioned in "male" list started by Kenny ("men of PS"). And I find his posts pretty ironic.

 

[VapidLapid]

Imdanny, you may need glasses, but you are certainly no idiot.

Minous, thank you for being interested and having noticed that I have been remiss in sharing. Without the education and encouragement that I've gotten in this forum I wouldn't have gotten as far as I have. I will say though, that it seems an unfortunate pattern in my life that I never finish anything. I guess as long as I am alive I reserve the right to go back into and rework any project. Everything to me seems to be more about the discovery than the discovered, and there are many processes going on at a time that all manage to inform each other and cross pollinate. I have learned to accept that I have many unfinished things and projects. Instead of telling myself that I am a lazy failure, I see the layered strata of my works as evidence of a fertile mind rather than cause for a OCD and attention deficit treatment. When I die all my projects will instantly be finished!

I did recently start a thread about having finished a small project. Admittedly, I only finished it because I needed the tools back to start another project and the old one was, in fact, glued to the tool. That thread is:

[URL='https://www.pricescope.com/community/threads/i-tried-my-hand-at.167992/']https://www.pricescope.com/community/threads/i-tried-my-hand-at.167992/[/URL]

There was also this thread:

[URL='https://www.pricescope.com/community/threads/forging-ahead.150898/']https://www.pricescope.com/community/threads/forging-ahead.150898/[/URL]

which has a topaz ring quite finished. Except the stone wasnt sitting right and I most delicately pried open the bezel to remove it and fix it. well you can imagine that bezels do not submit to being delicately pried back open. So that finished project is not quite unfinished. I used to wear it all the time and received many compliments on it. I hope I manage to refinish it soon, but I have no schedule for that.
Also in that thread was a silver ring that had broken as I was carving the seat for a spessartite. Well, really it was I who over carved, the ring didn't break on its own. That has been repaired and there will be some pictures of that later. Though don't get excited, it still isnt finished.

yesterday I photographed some finished, unfinished and sidetracking projects for you; mostly colored stone and jewelry related.

Some Jasper that I cut and polished. The stones (some of them) are finished, but nothing has been made with them, so they are unfinished.

 

[VapidLapid]

Because I bought lousy hammers on ebay that felt awful in my hand and were a real drag to use, I designed new handles for them, carved them and remounted the heads after modifying their profiles. Ebony and Palo Santo, aka Argentine Lignum Vitae. This sidetrack took some months away since I really got into carving and proceeded to make lots of things which I am always still doing.

 

[VapidLapid]

This ring looks finished and I do wear it as a pinkie ring sometimes, but in reality it is waiting for a lovely grossular garnet to be set in it.
18k green gold, alloyed by me, only gold and silver.
Those are little sculptures of mine that the ring is sitting on. Cast in pewter. I have hundreds more that I want to cast in silver. I made a vacuum casting maching (steel can, flange, flask, pump) and got one of those Kerr metal melters that look like insulated coffeepot, but then silver went way up.

 

[VapidLapid]

This is 20k gold also alloyed by me and only gold and silver. It had almost gotten finished, but in the middle of making a seat and bezel for a lovely cat eye chryso, I messed it up and had to heal my error my melting. Now it is a ringish blob. After the holidays I will get back to that. In these pictures you can see another project that distracts me. The ringblob is sitting on a copper plate I engraved, from which I printed my christmas card last year. The image is from a photograph I made with the CZ and titanite lens that I made, that was in an early thread of mine. Same lens as my avatar photo. I am about to start this years engraving so I wont be finishing anything else soon.

 

[VapidLapid]

A few things that I guess I am done with but that I think I could have done better. Sometime I will try again. Meanwhile they are servicable. A .999 fine chain With a big shout-out to ksinger for the great book on fusing! I however, was looking for a rustic and crude finish, which I was able to achieve, but not as aesthetically as I wanted.
Also some 3 strand twist rings. I tapered them out from the middle towards the ends before twisting. also discovered that the twist and the ring bend need to be done together, from the middle out. If the ring bend is done after the twist, then the twist opens up. I had seen a ring on three graces site that they said was made by vikings many centuries ago. These were my attempt at reproducing.

 

[VapidLapid]

Here is an unfortunate attempt to make an icosahedral box of lead! I had seen an ancient crusty gold one from Persia in an auction of antiquities at Christie's. I was making it as a christmas gift for my then 13 year old nephew. it was to contain uranium glass marbles, hence the "need" for it to be of lead. The soldering is horrid, but I was using, not a jeweler torch, but a bernzomatic propane torch better suited to sweating pipes. Next time (yup, there will be another attempt) I will know better. Now I also have plans to make a small silver icosahedron box, 20mm per side, as a pill box. Also I am pondering using the uranium glass marbles for a pools of light necklace.
This failed effort has sat around for a while as is evidenced by all the dust.

 

[VapidLapid]

 

[VapidLapid]

ok, here is the silver ring that I broke. I melted a blob of silver into the damaged area and reforged the metal. It is my intention to raise 4 prongs up from the mass of the body by forging, with my new fretz mini hammers!

 

[VapidLapid]

I needed the dop back from the stone in the other thread for this project which is what I am working on now and all through this week.
It is a camera lens. It is made of two pieces of achroite tourmaline, only one of which is pictured here. Actually they are slightly pink and slightly greyish. I am hoping that the grayish will also serve as a sort of neutral density filter, slowing the lens down in the middle where the tourmaline is thicker, thus evening out the cos4 fall-off. The lens will be mounted in a copal shutter and used on a 4x5 view camera.

 

[VapidLapid]

More lens. The diamond bit will cut a preform of the concave surface on this side of the tourmaline. After that is refined to the correct curvature and polished the tourmaline will be transferred to another dop and a convex surface will be cut on the other side.
Fractions of millimeters and seconds of arc are important so I do a lot of measuring. The dop is held in a vise that is bolted to a sliding and tilting x-y axis rotary table.






This last one I have photoshopped to illustrate the diamond burr cutting into the tourmaline, and also what the front profile will be. the backward crescent on the left is a crossection of the final object.

 

[kenny]

Wow, awesome work, tools and photography!!!!

 

[LD]

W W VL, you have such an amazing talent. I absolutely adore the icosahedron and one in silver would be stunning. Have you thought of selling your creations but I know I'd buy one in a heartbeat!

The jasper disc is also just stunning. I'm not sure if it's picture jasper or not but I can see such a strong picture in it.

Wonderful. Do please keep posting.

 

[minousbijoux]

Thank you very much - I am honored that you have shared so much. I have followed all your threads with great interest for several reasons, one being that you don't seem to finish. What I love in your introduction is how you explain that you don't finish things, but it seems that you really, really enjoy the process. From an outsiders perspective, it seems to me that for you its not the end as much as the journey, and it really seems like you are enjoying the ride. That is what I hope for in my life, to get to the point where I love the journey and am not so focused on the destination. I wouldn't be surprised if part of the reason you may not get around to finishing things is that once you've figured out how to get there and are certain you can, its not much of a challenge to you and you'd rather move on to the next problem. How cool is it that you didn't like the way the hammers felt so you designed new handles (which, by the way, are clearly works of art unto themselves)! Lots of admiration coming your way; sure hope you feel it.

You have a lot of talent and a lot of curiosity. Keep it up.

-Minou

 

[Arkteia]

Agree! You have a very unusual innovative view of the world... Please, keep posting. Would you ever be able to sell your creations? Or would it be hard to part with them?

 

[Lady_Disdain]

Great projects! They are all so interesting - a renaissance man sort of outlook. There is one jasper that looks like a close up of a rose which is just gorgeous.

I must say that my favourite is the tapering, twisted ring. I love it and I can't imagine how you got the taper. Would you mind sharing a little how-to?

 

[Aoife]

Thanks for posting these, VL. It's fascinating to watch not only the projects you undertake, but when and why you seem to put them on pause, and then go back and tinker with them. It's life-long learning for sure, and something I personally really value, so thank you for sharing.

Also, may I say, if you ever feel in the mood to do some more carving, I have 22 doors in my home that would love to have some handles like the ones you posted photos of--what beautiful, buttery smooth wood!

 

[VapidLapid]

Thank you all for the kind words of encouragement. Still I doubt that I will ever achieve a quality level that would satisfy PSers; however, christmas in the vapid family will be sweet!

Lady D, the taper was a tricky thing. Rolling a section of three mm wire out as though it were a worm of clay might work if one were at least 800 pounds and had hands of steel. Since no drawplate has an adjustable hole, it just has to be forged. I found this video on utube of a blacksmith forging a nail.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhpJp5uZpTc

Actually he has a few vids of nails being forged. His nails are squarish in cross section. To make them round I hold & rotate the wire in the one hand while hammering and working my way toward the end. yup I start in the middle and work outward, and strike at about every 30º. The starting dimension I used was to make the top of the ring roughly 4-5 mm wide, so I started with 14 ga (1.5mm) round wire. Also did not use the horn as that constantly put a bend in the wire. I used the flat top on the anvil and a raising hammer, handle parallel with the wire. Put a mark at the center so you leave that area unworked. Obviously the ends get worked more and with heavier blows than the area close to the middle. I tapered to.5 mm diameter at the ends to make the ring taper from 4.5mm at top to 1.5 at bottom. Keep notes of starting lengths and finish lengths, gauges used and sizes made so you can keep your tapers proportional.
The twist: I wrapped the center of the bundle of silver sticks (I dont dare say it) tightly with a piece of leather and inserted it into the chuck of my drill press. Tightened the jaws of the chuck down onto that wrapped middle section. Hold the end in jaws of wrench also protected with a leather wrap so as not to mar the silver and rotate the chuck by hand. Turn the bundle around in the chuck and repeat. Then while forming the ring hold the twisted bundle with two sets of pliers so you can add twist to the bundle as you form the ring around the mandrel. Cushion the jaws of your pliers with cork to protect the silver. begin the bend in the center and move the pliers outward from the center as the bend progresses keeping the twist tight by adding torque with the pliers as you go.

 

[movie zombie]

i'm a big fan of jasper and have several very large pieces set as rings........ do you plan to set yours? they are gorgous!

 

[iLander]

I am very proud to say that Mr Vapid is working on a lovely silver band for me, he said so.

I'm on month 6 and counting, VL. . .

(for those that don't know; VL and many other wonderful people helped me quit smoking over in Hangout. VL said that if I went a year, he'd make something for me, but I am just teasing him, I would never hold him to it. )

I love all these pieces, they are awesome, and the process makes it seem even awesomer (yes, that's a word. Well, now it is! )

 

[Barrett]

Well I saw it, and I had read your screen name as "Vapid Land" which I took to be a dark and ironic statement. Oh, and I thought you were, sorry, just assumed, a woman. Yes, I'm an idiot and I need glasses.

Goodness gracious..this whole time I thought the same thing..never put it together..so sorry Mr. vapid(winches)
(me)
love the pics!!

 

[VapidLapid]

Having shared this much I may as well share with you all today's setback; just the kind of thing that might have derailed all my work for a time. But as I get older I plan ahead and prepare for unplanned errors. Just as I was finishing the concave profile i heard a little pop.

 

[VapidLapid]

But as I said I am prepared for the unexpected and have a reserve of suitable tourmaline.

 

[VapidLapid]

In case any of you want to watch the terrible occurrence, I put it here

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j8PpFdDyJ4I

event begings at 3' 33"

sorry it is so jumpy, iphone in hand while working.

 

[Arkteia]

I could never imagine it to be such a difficult job... Thank you for this video! Sometimes one does not realize how much works goes into these projects...

 

[Arkteia]

I am very proud to say that Mr Vapid is working on a lovely silver band for me, he said so.

I'm on month 6 and counting, VL. . .

(for those that don't know; VL and many other wonderful people helped me quit smoking over in Hangout. VL said that if I went a year, he'd make something for me, but I am just teasing him, I would never hold him to it. )

I love all these pieces, they are awesome, and the process makes it seem even awesomer (yes, that's a word. Well, now it is! )

Does he do it for everyone who quits smoking? I mean, should I start?

 

[movie zombie]

i'd still like to know what the fate of the lovely jaspers is going to be.....

 

[VapidLapid]

Ha, no, not everyone. iLander needed incentive as she had tried before to quit and not succeeded.

The jaspers, yes MZ, landscape, Biggs and Deschutes. Have lots more . The small one is 12 x 14 mm, a high, high cab, and is bound to be bezeled in a ring. the large cushion shaped one is 1.5 inches across the middle. The three larger ones are meant to be the tops of small snuff boxes. The oval shown on edge with the stormy mountain landscape is for a ring. That one is 12 x 16 mm and is a flat top.

Alas, today,s attempt, while better than yesterday, still not ok. The tourmaline cracked. I am buying more just in case the next three dont make it. IT is not news to any of us that tourmaline can be difficult, can have stresses in the crystal that you just cannot know. Until they tell you! We have all heard stories from our favorite lapidaries about tourmalines breaking up just as that beautiful ascher was nearly finished, leaving them with little more than enough for a melee. Perhaps tomorrow will go better.