Ramblin' Dan's Workshop

I discovered an interesting drawing of what I first called a Celtic Horse. It may have originated as a basic design for  tattoo art. I thought it would make an interesting pendant for a necklace. Further research reveals it is a water horse, hippocamp or more friendly Scottish or Celtic name, a Kelpie. So Kelpie it is...

So I copied the Kelpie drawing into Vectric Aspire and did a vector bitmap trace to get the drawing into a vector format. I decided on an approximately two inch overall diameter. The rest was all pure Aspire creative effort. You can see the rendering from Aspire is exactly what was produced in the CNC 3D carving.

I use a taper spiral bit with a .003" flat tip and 6 degree (per side) taper. Run time at ~15 fpm was 1 hour 45 minutes.

This is the drawing as I discovered it. I thought it would have some possibilities.	After working for I suppose eight hours in Aspire, I ended up with this result. This is a rendering from the software.
Aspire can also show me how it will look in the wax blank. This is again a computer rendering.	Here is the real carving fresh off the CNC mill with only a light brushing to get the wax chips off.
This is the real wax carving after an hour or two of very careful cleaning. It's setting on a sticky note.	I was really wondering how to sprue this thing but this looks like it will work. Next will be investing, burnout and casting in silver.
I love when the cast is successful. I always do more than one flask when I heat the kiln. This is a photo with them just out of the pickle.	Here we are. Another interesting lost wax casting or two.  The horse is the most interesting as the ring is a very basic band. (The ring is for me...)