old photos

I am probably going to be taking a trip next month, and since I take a lot of pictures while traveling I like to make sure my camera gear is all in order well ahead of time and make sure I don't need to buy anything new. So while I was looking for something for my camera, I decided to check all my old memory cards I don't use any more and make sure they were empty. Well one wasn't empty. I found 15 process photos of my teapot and another piece from Oct. 2006. The photos are nothing that great, but I love process photos, so I was happy to find them.







I'll write more about the trip after I have the plane tickets. Other than that, there is not much going on worth writing about. The classes I am teaching are going well I guess. At least as far as I can tell. I am comfortable doing the techniques I am teaching, but communicating to someone how to do them is sometimes kind of difficult.

teapot process - finished piece

Here are the photos of the finished piece.





Here I am in Cheongju, S.Korea at the 5th Cheongju International Craft Competition in October, where I won the silver prize in the metals category.

teapot process - part 6

Here I am with my finished teapot. Actually I don't think I was totally finished, I think I was still working on the base.


I had to ship it to Korea the day after I finished. I made a box to ship it in. Each piece was wrapped in cloth before going in its compartment.




That box went inside another box with padding. There was no way that thing was getting damaged during shipping.

teapot process - part 5

Before anything that involved the aluminum parts could be assembled I had to anodize them. This is a photo of my anodizing set up where I anodized the parts.

Once everything was anodized I could start putting it together. I am attaching the silver sleeves to the handle with rivets in this photo. I have the whole piece wrapped in a paper towel and tape so I cannot accidentally scratch the anodized surface.

These are the pieces of silver tubing I used as spacers on the rivets to put a space between the two aluminum parts of the handle and the two aluminum parts of the base.

Here I am putting the handle together.

I am getting ready to rivet. There are 20 rivets, not counting the 2 that will attach it to the body of the teapot.

Again I wrapped the handle in tape to keep from damaging the anodizing. I worked on a couple rivets at a time and kept the rest of the handle covered. It is kind of annoying to have to keep taping it, removing tape, and re-taping it, but I think it is worth it when I consider the possible consequence of not being so careful. I really hate getting a scratch in my anodizing before I am even finished. And if I wanted to re-anodize the handle I would have to remove all the rivets and the sleeves, which would be a lot of work.

In this photo all the rivets are done, and I am sanding them so they are all the same height.

I put a slightly matte finish on the teapot. I don't like high polished silver.

I am almost finished.

The handle isn't actually attached. If you look closely you can still see the two holes for the rivets that will hold the handle on.

The two parts of the base are read to be riveted together.

Taped up to avoid an accident.

All the rivets are in. I am working on the 4 that hold the aluminum to the big silver piece.

teapot process - part 4

This is the lid. I made a handle out of plastiform from Otto Frei to hold the lid while I worked on it. All the tool suppliers sell the stuff under different names. Its a plastic that gets soft when its heated and you can use to to hold parts. I think its great.




The handle.



One end holds the piece from the top, the other end holds the piece from the bottom.



The mostly finished lid.




This bottom piece was very difficult to fit to the curve of the lid.



I hadn't given much thought on what the spout would look like. I made some clay models to try to decide.






There were a few other ideas, but I went with this one.





After deciding on the shape and size of the spout I cut holes in the body of the teapot. I this photo I have only drilled the holes, I filed them all square to make them look nicer.



This is the spout in progress. I made it at Haystack in July 2006 when I was there as Chunghi Choo's assistant. I messed up the first one and had to make a second, which I barely had enough silver for.






I have the two parts taped up so I don't damage the edges of them while I sand the rest of the teapot.




More sanding.

teapot process - part 3

What is happening is this photo is I am using the height gage on the right to hold the opening on the top of the teapot parallel to the table. The height gage on the left is being used to mark where I will attach the handle and spout.




Marking the center.





The handle will attach to this piece. I have super glued it on so I can make sure it's exactly where I want it and mark it.


It's still super glued together.



Here I have it set up to solder.






Soldered.




Here I am making the little aluminum piece that will go on the lid. The pliers are parallel locking pliers. They are great for holding small parts for filing.




This is the mostly finished piece.

teapot process - part 2

The piece on the left is the part that the handle will attach to. The 2 parts on the right are like sleeves that will go on the bottom of the handle, which will slide into the base. I made these silver sleeves, rather than just leaving it aluminum because it wouldn't take long for the anodizing to wear off from taking it off the base and putting it back on. With silver it could always be refinished.

I was checking to see how the sleeves fit in this photo.

This is the part of the base the handle will go into. The sleeves had to fit this piece very snug, or else the teapot would lean forward.

This is the new base. It is 2 identical pieces of 3/16" aluminum that will be riveted together.

The handle pieces and part of the base.

This is how the parts will go together. There is still a lot of work left to be done.

This part sticking out at the bottom will attach to the aluminum pieces of the base.

I have added the second part that will attach between the 2 aluminum pieces of the base.