Putting "casting" in the bag. Have checklists. Have knowledge. Have opinions about wax, investment and alloys. Survived a runaway melter getting hot enough to flash zinc into vapor, which caused molten copper to fly about. Am ready to return to production once said-same runaway melter has been refurbished. Actually owned three; donated a broken one to my mentor who got it working within two hours, have another with my cousin that I need to borrow back. Need to actually cast the pieces that I'm supposed to cast, but designs are finalized, molds are hardening and wax technique is established. Am so on-beyond-zebra when it comes to conventional jewelry casting that I've had to pioneer some shit.

Fuckin' whipped out a mongrelbrass christmas ornament in 20 hours. Have yet to so much as give myself a burn, at least if you don't count the curled knuckle hairs through leather gauntlets from an incandescent carbon flask held 12" away in tongs. Bitch was about 2500 degrees, or an easy 600 degrees hotter than intended.

Moving on to cloisonne.

You "flash" fine silver by getting it riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight to the melting point on one side, but not both sides, and then backing the fuck off so that it legit crystallizes and looks all lovely. You're supposed to do it with a combination of kiln and welding torch and measuring things to the second and such. I am six for six with a home depot propane torch. In evaluating the basic premise of cloisonne it appears that I can save myself a fuckload of time and effort through a modest application of Fusion360 and 3Dprinting. There is no combination of those words that produces a relevant search result.

I am exceptionally good at an extremely esoteric set of skills that are largely denigrated by the populace at large. That used to make me sad. Now it makes me angry. I'm having a hard time not taking it out on people.