Molten Silver and late night snow

I hadn't worked in my studio late at night for quite some time but to help with sleeping habits at home I decided to head there after work tonight.  The gallery had their first opening of 2015 and I could see the stray wine glasses as proof of a good time.  It's a beautiful exhibit that will be on display until the end of February.  

For the last couple of days I have been trying in vain to cast some silver pieces.  I was fooled by how easily the first one worked (remember the ring pictured to the left?) and it has been a complete failure every time thereafter!  

I got to work on some things non-casting projects that I could pretty much count on being successful and as I was cleaning up the studio around 2am I decided to try some very basic casting.  Just melt the silver and turn it into ingots.  

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This involves setting up your ingot mold, melting down the sterling and pouring it quickly into the mold so that it doesn't set up in a blob right on top of the mold like a nasty mushroom.  That's what happened the first pour tonight.  Back into the crucible and melt it again.  This time I had a successful pour and I have two lovely ingots.  

This put me leaving the studio a little after 2:30 and when I walked outside it was a beautiful snowy night.  I dusted off my covered bike and headed home.  I've never rode my bicycle in the snow before and other than the snow pelting me in my eyes it was really quite magical at 3 in the morning.  As I was writing this I heard a bit of a thump outside - a branch just fell on said bike.  I'm hoping that the car next to it took some of the brunt of the weight, I guess I'll find that out in the morning.  

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