Thank you!

This makes me so happy to hear! I wish one of my art teachers had taught me this!

Yeah, that got a chuckle out of me too

It was laser engraved :) this one was just a simple pattern, but you can get pretty elaborate with them

you can polish pewter in a tumbler but use steel ball bearings as media, smooth ceramic chips work as well.

It's not bad, but definitely not the best. The metal gears definitely work, but pewter is much softer than steel, or even aluminum, so any mechanical parts would either need more reinforcement in their design or else need to be light duty pieces.

Sorry for the late reply... there are plenty of sources out there. Rotometals is great, but you can even get it on Amazon. Just do a search for 'pewter ingot' and you'll probably find several sources. Alternatively, there are people who raid thrift stores for old pewter objects. You can find pewter candlesticks, picture frames, tankards, etc., and then just melt them down with a torch. It takes more effort to find what you need, but it's definitely the cheapest way. Just be careful to check the markings, because very old pieces may still contain lead.

So the short answer is 'yes', but it really depends on the size and thickness. The coins that I show in the opening clip are 2-3mm thick, which is a bit thicker than a normal coin, but I can't bend them by hand. Scale them up a bit though, and you could get the mechanical advantage you would need to bend them. It's the same with any metal, that way. I've made a few nameplates that are 1-2mm thick, and they can be bent fairly easily by hand, but since they're designed to be mounted on wood it's no issue. Normally when I'm casting a new project I'll start thinner, and if it's too bendy I'll just use a thicker spacer in the mold.

@@SomeUncomm That makes sense, thanks. I might try this out with a silicone mould i made based of a 3D print. It seems like a good method to get into metal casting and forgiving in a sense as you can just remelt the failures as youve shown!

The mold can definitely be used more than once! You'd think the heat would break down the glue in the chipboard, but apparently it is able to withstand quite a bit. For basic molds, I've been able to reuse them up to probably 10 times, but that's normally because I make some iteration and start over with a new set. So it's hard to say exactly how long they last. That said, if the mold is deep and contains thin lines of material, it's easier for the cast to pull bits of it out when you demold it. For me personally, if the detail is very thin, I'll try to keep it around .5mm deep, or less. The thicker the detail, the deeper you can go.