New Zealand Spirit Brooch Original

 

The Human Spirit just keeps on  keeping on.....Remember that when things get tough!

 

 

 

 I'm refreshing my spirit by looking through old techniques recalling past achievements (and disasters )  What seems a disaster or insurmountable at the time can often turn out to be helpful in the future.
This is the first one of the series If you look closely you will see a small crack in the Paua (tail) and a hole drilled right through (top left) I  made the holes in the Paua the same size as the holes in the copper and when  riveting it was too tight. The holes in the Paua need to be  at least .5 (half) a hole bigger than the metal to allow for the expansion of the silver rivets.(Experimentation) The other hole well that was just a mistake in the planning. It could have filled it with a rivet but I quite like the way the colour of whatever the brooch is pinned on just shows through.
Sticky backed genuine Paua sheet has advantages, can't "move" around when riveting but that makes it fairly unforgiving. I never found a successful way of drilling Paua and metal sheet together, using a Drill Press they always had to be drilled seperately.
This failure became the protype for a lovely brooch series.