Yesterday was not a great.  Not because of it being Friday 13th; I don’t believe bad luck was so much the cause as my stupidity was.  I had both sides of my handle pressed but I needed more depth so as soon I got into university I went straight to work.  Things were going so well until…my one of the pressings split.

The pressing that split - oh noes.

Back to the drawing board.  I started making a replacement.  Fortunately I had a spare rectangular sheet of nickel.  I pressed that sheet using 4000psi¹ that I had pressed the wrong side of the handle.  Silly, silly me.

This is what I used to help form the shape of the handle.

Vicious cycle.  My day was basically spent pressing².  Although my friend Nadia did give me a good laugh.  Look at what she did to my handle prototype:

Mrs Betsy, the "snake" handle.

Those were her thoughts then.  Although in a speech bubble she is referring to me, quote: “She broke it!!  She broke it!!”  That wasn’t to do with the split in the pressing but more with the bench.  No, I didn’t go Incredible Hulk on it, I was trying to fix the lether tray-thing but ended up doing more damage.  Whoops.  My patch up job wasn’t too bad though, I don’t think so anyway.

Mrs Betsy Factoid:

• Name: Mrs Betsy
• D.O.B: 12th March
• Height: 160mm
• P.O.B: School Of Jewellery, Birmingham
• Personality: She is a little self-absorbed and high maintenance; needing a make-over³ should someone touch her body décor.  Outspoken and clever; barely 2 hours old she learnt to spell “difficulty”.  Mrs Betsy is cheeky but altogether and all-rounder. Well…maybe not.

1. 4000psi doesn’t give a lot of depth but in order to increase the depth we have to saw off more of the flange; the waste metal around the pressing).), then sawed off the excess metal, leaving a 5mm border around the pressing.  Sawing took a long, long time but after 45 minutes+ I was there.  Jogged back down to the basement to anneal my metal before pressing to 6000psi.  Went back cut more off the flange but realised ((Thanks to the lecturer. [↩]
2. Good work out though. [↩]
3. Her stylist is Nadia. [↩]