7. Materials needed for soapstone pewter casting

Material Sheet for Soapstone Pewter Casting

Concept:

Casting Pewter in soapstone is a fairly straight-forward process providing one has the right tools. There are many works on period casting designs, which will point out buttons, pilgrim badges (similar to tourist patches of the current day), jewelry and the like. Due to the nature of the soapstone molds, one can cast hundreds of each item before needing to re-carve a new design.

Materials Needed:

Casting:

  • Electric Melting Pot:
    • Resource: (Ebay, about $35.00)
  • Portable gas stove with steel or iron pot (Find your local Japanese grocery store for cheap single burner gas stoves, gas canisters and pots).
  • Pewter: I recommend R-98 lead free casting pewter, MPK pewter, or similar. Note that pewter with copper, tin and silver is very shiny, whereas pewter with tin, antimony (or bisumuth), and a little copper is not so shiny, though it is cheaper. Never Every get pewter with lead in it, due to major health concerns.
  • Soapstone: There are many kinds of soapstone. Some are as hard as marble, and others are nearly as soft as a finger-nail. Typically, the caster wants something closer to the finger-nail softness for easy carving, but a little harder for a design that will last a long time and not break apart while casting.  Most importantly, the best carving stone is the sort that is smooth and has very few deposits of other minerals that hinder the carving process.
  • Wonderstone: Simply aswesome to carve with.
  • Resource:
    • Unfortunately, soapstone suppliers on Ebay and Amazon come and go quickly, as do general website suppliers. The best advice I have is to search all your favorite online shopping sites for “soapstone blocks or wonderstone blocks.” Look for products that are of a “carving quality). You’ll find a wide-range of sizes, shapes and pricing. When you find what you think would work, shoot an e-mail to the site-owner and details what you are doing with it. Usually they will be able to recommend a product from their inventory for you.
  • Ladle: The ladle is simply a deep, long handled steel or iron spoon that can easily pour pewter. This can be purchased at foundry stores, on Ebay, or even a metal supplier such as Rotometals (see above).

CARVING TOOLS

  • X-acto knife set
    • Resource: a $10.00 kit from ACE that has multiple blades.
    • Any carving kit from Harbor Freight
    • Nippers: to cut burrs off of casted items.
      • Resource: ACE Hardware.
      • Electric Drill/Dremel for drilling alignment holes.
        • Resource: Target, Walmart, hobby store.

SAFETY AND SETTING

  • Welders Gloves (okay, but not great with high heat)
  • BBQ Gloves (these are AWESOME)
    • Resource: ACE Hardware, Target, etc.
  • Paper Dust Masks and Plastic Eye Glasses: (for when you are sanding down or drilling soapstone blocks for smooth surfaces and blocking holes—lots of dust).
    • Resource: ACE Hardware, Target, etc.
  • Place:  A garage, patio or other outside setting is best.

RESOURCES FOR PERIOD DESIGNS

Although the caster will create many original designs, the SCA personality will typically want some references for period style. Some of the best I know of are below. Searches online or in book-stores for ‘Pilgrim Badges’ or ‘Pewter Casting,’ or ‘medieval pewter’ will often turn up interesting results.

Online Articles:

  • University of Northern Colorado: Thomas A. Bredehoft : LITERACY WITHOUT LETTERS: PILGRIM BADGES AND

LATE-MEDIEVAL LITERATE IDEOLOGY (Accessible Online at:  http://asstudents.unco.edu/faculty/tbredehoft/UNCclasses/ENG238/LiteracyLetters.pdf).

Books:

  • Note: Windrose Armory, who merchants at many wars, has the best selection of affordable copies of pewter books to date. Most really good resources are out of print and go for hundreds on Amazon, whereas the same books will be less than $100.00 at Windrose. Website: (http://www.windrosearmoury.com/zc/).
  • Michael Mitchiner: Medieval pilgrim and secular badges. (1986. ISBN-13: 9780904173192). Out of Print, Search Ebay and Used Book Websites. $50.00-$200.00.
  • S. Blick: Beyond Pilgrim Souvenirs And Secular Badges: Essays in Honour of Brian Spencer. Oxbow Books Limited (September 4, 2007).
Published on June 22, 2010 at 10:38 pm  Comments Off on 7. Materials needed for soapstone pewter casting