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Brass butterfly
(thelemmy.club)
A simple brass butterfly, cut by hand with a saw.
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this post was submitted on 11 May 2026
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The tarnishing is a problem indeed, I have been considering using some varnishing to prevent it, but I'm not convinced on the results.
The good thing with the hardness of brass, is that it makes it possible for this craft to be really thin, while still resistant to being bent too easily; I wouldn't expect the same from gold. And well, another good point (other than the costs) is that there isn't a whole legal headache around buying and reselling gold, too.
I haven't tried casting yet (I know, it seems like something obvious to do, but I like working without heat for some reason), but I have a feeling that the "sharpness" you get from sawing the metal is harder to obtain when casting, which tends to make slightly softer shapes.
But yeah, precious metals do have a lot of advantages. I have been a bit stuck, not using silver, to have a grey metal to craft, because other than aluminum not much is doable.
You'd have to use something like 12-14k gold to get near enough hardness, and it would still be soft. OTOH, it's a pendant, so it isn't under any heavy use, like a bracelet or a ring would be. It's pretty well protected, just hanging there on the chest.
I understand the sharp outline you get from cutting, but you still have to file and polish those edges anyway, and that's what gives it the sharp outline. You could still do that in a cast piece. In fact, you'd probably have to.
Casting is pretty easy for small things, once you get the hang of it. It's not something you'd want to do inside an apartment, though. Definitely an outside activity, unless you're already in some sort of industrial building. It's fun though, and it feels really good to show off a cast piece. That's an impressive skill to outsiders.
BTW, I'm not a jeweler, but I have a close friend who's a pro, and I spent many hours sitting next to him at his bench, poking through his little drawers, and asking questions, and occasionally crafting my own amateurish pieces. I used to like to carve wax models and cast them in silver, back when silver was dirt cheap. Fascinating stuff.
I always get a bit paranoid about things getting damaged and bent too easily. And I know it's not always reasonable, I had a hard time accepting to make things like earrings with intentionally weak links for example (I used to make the whole thing extra strong, and then realized that if something pulls on the earring, it's better for it to break than for the ear itself). Even with a pendant, you can have a coat on top, the strap of a bag, etc, and I start worrying that it would be ruined by such an easy mistake.
I'm definitely not a jeweller either, I just picked up a hobby of crafting pieces with a saw, and as such I'm rather limited in my knowledge of other methods.
Who knows, I might try casting eventually. I have the basic tools to do it, and some tin that I could melt, but that would be for a very different style since you can't make much in tin without it bending ^^'
In most cities, you can get wax models cast by jewelery supply places, etc. I did it a few times, and it was fairly cheap, but that was a long time ago. That way, all you have to do is create the model out of wax, which is ridiculously easy to work with.
It's a fun hobby, and this is a really nice piece.
That's interesting, I'll look into it
And thanks for the nice words!