Metals: A Brief Conclusion

What is "A Brief Conclusion"?  Is that the end of a chapter?  I might never know!
Last time I blogged, I talked about a copper piece I made in a short course class.  I was SO excited about what I was learned in the first class, I couldn't wait for the next!  Unfortunately, the next class was was pretty much a repeat of the first class.  This was not the teacher's fault; she taught what she needed to.  However, I chose to do a complicated project.  Because of this choice, I was only able to cut (well, in this case, saw).  In the third class, I finished my second piece and did the third.

The following pictures have descriptions underneath.

Here are all the pieces I made in the class.  I think they look so good!

This is the second piece I made.  The point of this piece was to learn about simple riveting.  Riveting allows one to attach separate pieces of metal to each other.  We not only learned how to attach the pieces together, but also learned how to make the rivets.  The rivets in the above pictures are the darker circles (on the center vertical line).  This piece took a long time to make because I did not realize how long it would take to make all of those cutouts. 

My mom is rocking this piece.  She wore the chain when she came to visit me.  After I showed her this piece, my mom snatched the piece from my hand, wove the chain between the gaps, put it on, and took it home.  No questions asked.  Cool, somebody's got to wear it!

Caption: "What."  With a period, not a question mark.

This is the third piece I made.  To repeat and clarify, I made this piece in the third class.  The objective of the third class was to learn how to solder.  If you look on the right side, you'll see that there is smaller metal slab on top of the bottom tear-drop shaped piece.  Putting those two pieces together is called "sweat soldering."
As a bonus, our teacher showed us how to make those metal balls.  Basically take a scrap piece of metal and heat it until it melts.  Metal has this a natural property to come into itself.  So when it starts melting, it will   make a ball.   I became way too excited when I saw this happen.  My classmates were laughing at my reaction.
I don't this soldering the metal balls has a special term... normal soldering?
Soldering was fun (especially when we made the metal balls).  However, I do not see myself soldering soon.  There are a lot of risks that come with soldering.  I just do not feel comfortable dealing with all of those risks.

Okay now this piece is a whole 'nother story.  My friend and I went to Free Art Friday to screen print.  Screen printing was fun, but it only took two seconds because we were not able to create our own screens. So, the only thing we were able to do was push the squeegee. The other "free art" item was...wait for it... shrinky dinks.  I was not impressed at all.  At that time, I remembered that I had seen shrinky dinks on commercials in the 1990s.  I also remembered that I thought that they were st*p*d because the outcomes they showed in the commercials were really childish.  However, my friend was geeking (understatement) out about them, so I gave it try.  Welp, i gotta say, it was actually pretty fun!  What helped was that I did not need to use some odd child-friendly template.

I think the metal chains add a strong edge to the piece.  I like how the metal chains do not make the product look cheap.  The shape (which was inspired by a lotus) helps elevate the look, too.  The only time this piece looks cheap is when you physically hold it because then you are reminded that it is a shrinky dink.

Yep, my mom is wearing the piece and cutting chicken.... Wait, is my target market my mom???!?!?!?