Cuttlefish Bone Casting!

I have tried cuttlefish bone casting before, years ago and it was a big failure. I have a little more patience now so decided to give it a go.

I had some bones in my cupboard for ages, some I had bought and some that I found on the beach at Titchfield Haven not far from home.

I only had 3 bones that were big enough.  The first one I decided to take two bones and then sand them down and fit them together.  That did work but it was hard to get them to fit together.

I then decided to saw the other one in half.  This is where I had problems before and the bones broke.  This time it didn't break and it worked well.  Still some teething problems ie not using enough silver grains in my casting and the second one I made the sprue on the 2nd half too long so it lost some of the texture on my casting at the bottom.

None of this makes sense unless you know about casting!  I have ordered some more bones and when they arrive I will take some photos of my next effort to show you.  In the meantime here are my pieces.  I will use them to make something.  They both need hallmarking as they are pretty heavy.

I love the texture that you get from them.