Here is an Ordovician Period trilobite called Flexicalymene from the Mt. Washington area in Kentucky. It is approximately 2 cm in length and has been cleaned with a sand blaster. It is about the only one I have found that is stretched out and almost fully intact.
I found it on a field trip with KYANA Geological Society (www.kyanageo.org) of Louisville, Kentucky.
That's a beautiful fossil, I can see why you want to make a silver one. Have you done something like that before? What's your approach? Thanks for the compliment and stopping by my blog!
ReplyDeleteNo, I have not tried casting before. The Etsy trilobite jewelry was made with Precious Metal Clay (PMC). It looks pretty cool but not cheap to get started with material & tools.
ReplyDeleteSince seeing your blog post I have thought of three methods: 1) use the fossil to imprint the fossil in modeling clay and then use wax to make a mold. The mold can be used for lost-wax casting. So far just got to the imprint in clay stage.
2) I used some dry wall plaster I mixed several weeks ago and put it in a small metal pan. I let it harden to a point that I could still imprint it. Wetted the fossil with water and pressed it into the plaster. Baked the plaster in the pan in the oven to harden the imprint. Took a soldering iron and melted silver solder scraps (from copper water pipe soldering) into the imprint. Lets just say the result is abstract trilobite art. :)
3) Imprint the fossil in fine particle sand and melt metal into the imprint. Might have to get or make green sand for this.
This experience might make for a good blog post. I should post the results of tin solder trilobite.
Stay creative!