2007 scale brooch - finished

This carved brooch was one of the pieces I found in my drawer that was very close to being finished. I started it in 2007. It's the kind of piece I could work on forever trying to make it perfect and never get it exactly the way I want it. I decided to just finish it up and move on.

I thought it would be cool to polish several random scales. I was worried they wouldn't look much different from the matte finish scales after the piece was anodized, but decided to try it anyway. I wouldn't have cared if they were indistinguishable from the matte scales, but what I didn't want was for them to look only slightly different.


I anodized the piece and got exactly the result I didn't want. The polished scales look only slightly different, but different enough that they don't fit in. I thought it made the piece look like I did a poor job finishing it.

But that wasn't the only problem, I had lots of little spots in my anodizing. I also wanted the color to fade from dark at the bottom to light at the top, which didn't work out very well, and I didn't like the color I used (fast blue).


So I decided to reanodize it. It was a lot of extra work cause I had pits open up when I etched the color off. I don't know why. I had to burnish them closed. I also put a different finish on the piece. I used scotch brite in one direction. For the previous matte finish I had used pumice. The color is blue 4A, and I got the color fade looking better. I had no significant spots in the anodizing, I think because I neutralized the acid a little differently this time. I am working on some posts showing how to set up an anodizing tank and how to anodize, so I will write about that later.

The finished piece is ok. It's not as good as I wanted, I don't think it ever could be, but it's good enough and I just want the thing to be finished so I can move on to something else.

I worked on my new piece yesterday, and I decided what I would do with the little parts I made. Its almost done. I have been taking pics of it, but I am not ready to post any yet. I don't like showing my work at such early stages because it doesnt look like much. I'll post the pics when I can also show a finished or almost finished piece.

I also worked on this brooch for about an hour and a half:

This is an old picture of it, but it doesnt really look much different. I am just working on little things. Thats what takes so much time. Right now I am almost finished polishing each scale. After that is done I will refine the edges of the scales with a graver. And after that is done, hopefully I will be satisfied and I can anodize it, finish the pinback and be done.


This is how it looked when I was first making the shape.


I dont have any pictures of it between this step and the previous photo because I often forget to take pictures. I have a lot of photos of work in progress, but very few that show a piece from start to finish. I usually just have random stages of the piece when I would think to take a picture. But I am getting better with taking regular photos, because now I have a camera I can keep next to my bench .