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Mmm, coins. The massive project of ultimate doom is pretty much done.
Most of the time was spent conditioning the metal for blanks though. First I cast ingots, then I hammered over them with a cross-pien hammer until they were thoroughly textured (this stretched the metal laterally). Then I went over the ingot with the flat side of a ball-pien (mirror polished :) ) until all the ridges were worked out. Repeat this 3-4 times for each ingot until they're about four times as large as the cast ones. I then cranked 'em through a rolling mill (holy crap, sweaty work that), until the sheets were down to 21 gague. Then I punched out the blanks with my shiny new annular punch, and struck coins! I did 173 blanks yesterday and ended up with 169 usable coins. Combined with the ones we made at coronation that makes about 225. It's a bit short of my goal of 240, but oh well. Alas I'm not going to be able to make the last 15 before I go, maybe I can make them after Pennsic and mail them out instead. I also want to do a couple fine silver strikes eventually, after I finish my mon die I think.
But yeah, I hung out and worked on these in Olympia all day yesterday, and was striking until about 1am. Finally got home around 2:40 and hit bed at 3. Unfortunately I had an extra-early day at work today, and had to be there at 8ish. Yow.
Oh well, I'll sure sleep well tonight.
Most of the time was spent conditioning the metal for blanks though. First I cast ingots, then I hammered over them with a cross-pien hammer until they were thoroughly textured (this stretched the metal laterally). Then I went over the ingot with the flat side of a ball-pien (mirror polished :) ) until all the ridges were worked out. Repeat this 3-4 times for each ingot until they're about four times as large as the cast ones. I then cranked 'em through a rolling mill (holy crap, sweaty work that), until the sheets were down to 21 gague. Then I punched out the blanks with my shiny new annular punch, and struck coins! I did 173 blanks yesterday and ended up with 169 usable coins. Combined with the ones we made at coronation that makes about 225. It's a bit short of my goal of 240, but oh well. Alas I'm not going to be able to make the last 15 before I go, maybe I can make them after Pennsic and mail them out instead. I also want to do a couple fine silver strikes eventually, after I finish my mon die I think.
But yeah, I hung out and worked on these in Olympia all day yesterday, and was striking until about 1am. Finally got home around 2:40 and hit bed at 3. Unfortunately I had an extra-early day at work today, and had to be there at 8ish. Yow.
Oh well, I'll sure sleep well tonight.