Post #666623 by Hale Tiki on Thu, Feb 7, 2013 5:20 PM

No luck with cutting out the gunstock war club yet. I instead spent the time finding lots of Maori and Marquesan patterns. I think there's some serious weapon making in my future.

First things first, the first test pieces.

I don't know why the photo came out blue, but it did. It's actually a dark green. There's a few problems with this panel. First, it's poured too thick. This means that some of the smaller shells are lost in the resin. Second, the resin wasn't mixed properly, and so there are some white streaks. This did, however, tell me how much resin I needed to pour onto each 5" panel. Approx 10 grams, for those of you wondering.

So, I cut the resin in half and poured the second panel. This also told me a few things. I have the resin amount right, but was too light on the dye. Not nearly enough tint. It's very, very light blue. This also means that I need to frost the back of the panels for both light dispersion, and to prevent you from being able to see the bulb. I really like the way the dyed oyster shells look.

While I was at lunch today, I decided to stop by a couple of my favorite shops to look for supplies. There's a lot of places that sell "froofy" things that can be easily turned into tiki items. Like the glass vases that I spent a year and a half collecting to make wonderful floats. Anyway, I found bags of shells for $3. Very few are broken, and there's a WIDE variety.

I'll be heading to more stores tomorrow to try to buy more.

Here's some shells that are used very effectively in a lamp in our local Tiki Lounge. I tried to take a photo the other night during Tiki Tuesday, but couldn't get one that I liked. Oh hell, here it is anyway.

As you can see, there's the same type of shell hanging from the bottom. It looks great in person.

And here's my budding collection of those shells. I took the photo for pittsburghpaulie, who loves that lamp.

Not much else to report. I'm working on a second piece for the art swap, that ought to be fun. OH, and I got in my bucket of fireproofing today, which means that the lamps will not only be fireproof, but safe in a commercial setting.

Can't wait to make more things!