Old Warrior

[kitsunelady]

So is it finding someone to cast the pewter objects you need the problem, or is it finding someone to gold plate them?

[Melody]

etruscan wrote:

Does Swarovsky [or however you spell it] make crystal eggs? Or, I believe a few special pieces have had silver color eggs rather than gold.

They don’t seem to make them. We had checked when we first made this sculpture. We couldn’t find a source anywhere for little eggs this size, made out of anything. So we made our own.

[Melody]

WolfenMachine wrote:

Is there a reason you couldn’t order the horns from the same company you got them from in California and have them shipped?

They are the company that totally F*****D up the last batch of pewter and got us in this mess!!! I don’t think so.

[WolfenMachine]

Melody wrote:

WolfenMachine wrote:

Is there a reason you couldn’t order the horns from the same company you got them from in California and have them shipped?

They are the company that totally F*****D up the last batch of pewter and got us in this mess!!! I don’t think so.

O.O omg! I didn’t know the last company screwed up. Yeah, I retract my statement then! O.O I’m sending good thoughts your way that you find a company who can help *hugs*

[twindragonsmum]

Melody, have you tried Red Sky Plating? They are in New Mexico and have all sorts of plating opptions from gold to vermeil to rhodium to silver to two tones to nickel, copper, tin, tin-lead, etc. They have a very good reputation and stand behind their promise of “You are the Boss”. Here’s the link to their homepage.

http://www.redskyplating.com/finishes.htm

I hope it helps!

twindragonsmum 😀

tdm

[Melody]

kitsunelady wrote:

So is it finding someone to cast the pewter objects you need the problem, or is it finding someone to gold plate them?

Yes, both. There are almost no pewter casting places left in this country. I don’t think any of them could compete with imported pewter prices. John did find one company in Rhode Island. (Thats a long way to ship heavy stuff, but not as far as China!)
I am actually not sure who was responsible for our egg and horn rot problem; I don’t know if the same company both cast and plated our pewter since I wasn’t involved with this, but both processes were pretty screwed up. We discarded about half of some horn castings before we even used them, because of defects, then we find out years later that the plating was bad too!! argh.
So I am ranting again. Sorry. Feels good though.
THE GOOD NEWS is that we DO have enough Old Warrior horns to start casting them again, and we DO have a bag of good eggs that have been sorted, checked and given a nice coating of clear lacquer for good luck ( you can’t see it at all). We are starting to cast coiled mother dragons again.

[WolfenMachine]

YAAAAYYYYY!!! Im so excited! I hope there will be more Amethyst and Black Violet Peacock old warriors in the next coming months 😀 😀

[Melody]

twindragonsmum wrote:

Melody, have you tried Red Sky Plating? They are in New Mexico and have all sorts of plating opptions from gold to vermeil to rhodium to silver to two tones to nickel, copper, tin, tin-lead, etc. They have a very good reputation and stand behind their promise of “You are the Boss”. Here’s the link to their homepage.

http://www.redskyplating.com/finishes.htm

I hope it helps!

twindragonsmum 😀 No, I don’t know if we have tried them or not , but I’ll pass this along to John. We do still have some raw pewter that hasn’t been plated.

[twindragonsmum]

For casting have you tried Tierra Cast? I only know them by reputation, which as far as I’ve heard, has been good. Here’s their link

http://www.tierracast.com/

Good luck! …and Yay! Mama’s!!!

twindragonsmum 😀

tdm

[yolanda]

Heres to hopefully seeing the amethyst OW & maybe PINK too…….. squeek* squeek* ……Would love to get a coiled mother in the glacier color…. squeek* squeek*

[twindragonsmum]

i still think a foil wrapped chocolate easter egg would do… *snerk*

tdm

[PurpleTurtle]

twindragonsmum wrote:

i still think a foil wrapped chocolate easter egg would do… *snerk*

Yes, that would be nice and yummy :yum: . But then you’d end up with a momma dragon without an egg 😀 .

[WolfenMachine]

New question, old topic: Melody, could you possibly paint some copper patina old warriors with the metallic teal eyes for the store? *bats eyelashes* pretty pretty pwease

[Melody]

dracco wrote:

Well you do use the sphere on the coiled male and the curlies so would it be impossible to use them for the coiled mother ??? Would it be hard to fill the hole and resculpt it ?? I have checked into 2 marble companies that make special requests but i havent heard back to see if they can or will do an egg shape. They do various sizes and colors ….Heck i think one even does glow in the dark but they had irridecent colors pastels all sorts of colors.Plus im thinking this would be a MUCH cheaper way than crystal or gemstones. This way we could have different colors too and you wont have to raise prices if it comes to that. Its just an idea and as soon as i hear back i can let you know what they say and give you info. One company only has an email 2 contact them and im waiting on them to reply .The other ….well i didnt call in time today but heres the number 800-846-4228 . Its a thought and we can see if either of these companies are able to make what you need.

The sphere the male holds doesn’t fit.
I could change the sculpture -which is not that hard to do, but it would involve time consuming mold work, and then we’d have two versions of the sculpture…which would be a pain.
There is a smaller size of sphere that fits, but it isn’t a size we use so we’d probably have to have them made… yuck. Every option has its issues.

[Nightcrow]

Gemstone eggs were what I thought of immediately. I see them fairly frequently in nature- or fantasy-type stores, and they even sell little display stands made to hold them, so they must be fairly popular… you might just go with a basic white/quartz/clear egg for all of them, to let you order in bulk and to prevent clashing with new colors. (LP, test, and special runs could have colored eggs; a nice extra touch?)

Edited to add: I haven’t seen a Coiled Mother in person, so I guess I didn’t realize quite how small her egg was. I admit the smallest stone eggs I’ve seen were probably an inch long, or a smidge over that. So if she needs something smaller, that’s probably very hard to find!

Could you cast a gypsum egg, (lacquer it if needed? not sure if porosity would flub the plating), and plate it? Might be easier in the long run, if you could use one good pewter egg to make a mold from…

foxfeather wrote:

Melody wrote:

dracco wrote:

I was wondering , since it looks like you may be on a roll on restocking store items, if we may see the Amethyst OW soon?
Or Maybe the long awaited pink OW or maybe a glacier OW ?? squeek* squeek*
Also is there a new color in the works coming out soon on any of the dragons with so many squeeks going on and all the various new colors on Ebayed stuf ?
Oh , and hows the search coming along for eggs for the coiled mother ?? 🙂

We had painted some Amethyst OWs but they all turned out to be “goof ups” due to bad paint. We haven’t been casting them, but if we have enough horns, we may start casting them.

All our eggs are rotten, and no prospects of finding a new pewter company, so I don’t know what we are going to do about that. Maybe I’ll change the object she is holding…

I am considering a new color for the dragons, but not sure yet. I really want to restock our store before adding new things, but I might do a batch of Serpentine dragons in limited production.

What about a stone egg? 😕 There are all kinds of neat semiprecious stones out there that polish up really nice that can be cut into eggs, any Lapidary shop could probably do it. And then the egg would look like “real” dragon eggs 😀

Interested in buying or trading for: GB Pebble Sitting Red Fox in dark grey, Lap Dragon Test Paints (Water Sprite, Glacial Pearl, Opulence, Pastel Rainbow, and many others - see my Classifieds ad), Blue Morpho OW, GB Pebble Loaf dragons in blue/aqua/teal, and Griffin Test Paints (Black Rainbow or Frosted Jade).

[Author]

Posts