Hobby Thread - Sept 20, 2025 [Harry Winston Rex]

Welcome hobbyists! Pull up a chair and sit a spell with the Horde in this little corner of the interweb. This is the mighty, mighty, mighty officially sanctioned Ace of Spades Hobby Thread. A spin of the Ace of Spades Wheel of Hobbies (TM) landed on jewelry making and metal casting.

Even if you are tempted to say "I don't make jewelry or do metal casting or do modeling or pay attention to photography or space, so there is nothing here for me," let the thought pass. No Moron could possibly say such a thing. The world is your oyster. You might be entertained or learn something. You might enjoy seeing what others are hobbying.

I have faith that you can find something in the content that resonates or contribute your own hobbying interests. Dig around in the content and soak in the comments. Be curious. Glad you're here.

[Top: The Vanderbilt Sapphire, Tiffany & Co., Up for auction on November 10, 2025 along with other Vanderbilt family jewelry]

What are you hobbying?

As per usual Hobby Thread etiquette, keep this thread limited to hobbying. All (legal) hobbying is welcome. However, politics, current events and religious debates can live in threads elsewhere. Current events are still on our minds, but let's stick to hobbying here. Pants are optional. Puns are welcome and encouraged.

Play nice. Don't be a troll and do not feed the trolls.

More on the top photo:

The present collection comes from Gladys Moore Vanderbilt, Countess Szechenyi, who was born in 1886 in Newport, Rhode Island. She grew up in the largest private house ever built in New York City, the Vanderbilt II family mansion on Fifth Avenue, and The Breakers, in Newport, Rhode Island, that she inherited and leased to the Preservation Society of Newport County after 1948, where she held an apartment until her death in 1965.

The star of the collection is "The Vanderbilt Sapphire," an exceptional sugarloaf Kashmir sapphire and diamond brooch weighing 42.68 carats, in illustrious "Royal Blue" colour. Mounted by Tiffany & Co., this extraordinary gem is accompanied by certificates from AGL, SSEF, and Gubelin. It was originally gifted by Alice Gwynne Vanderbilt to her daughter Gladys Vanderbilt, Countess Szechenyi.

Auction estimate: USD $1m-$1.5m.

More auction goodies at the link if you're into that sort of thing.

Horde Hobbying

We did a thread in January on jewelry making in honor of Jewels. She had a personal connection with many among the Horde, but the thread also reminded us that jewelry isn't all about Tiffany or Cartier. Making your own jewelry is a hobby for some and a mini-business for others.

Lurker Sterling sent a note to the Hobby Thread mailbox recently with some fine work.

When my grandfather retired he took classes and became a trained jeweler. When he passed he left a lot of his jewelry equipment to us grandkids. A lot of what he left was old and unusable but a lot of the tools he left can still be used. I'm not as good as he was, but I'm learning through YouTube videos and online classes. Started out with basic rings and earrings and have learned how to sand cast. I want to learn lost wax casting eventually.

When tinkering in the garage I feel a connection to my grandfather that I didn't expect. Some of the images I included of are pieces that people had me make. The pearl ring was for prom and the gold earrings are for a friends wedding anniversary. The rest are just me enjoying experimenting and working with my hands.

Nice!

Sterling recommended Andrew Berry's YouTube Channel titled "At the Bench" for wisdom on making jewelry.

Spotted these which directionally connect to a project below from Reforger:

Lots of patience and steady hands, but I found the use of a wooden brace rather than a vice of some sort to be interesting. Looks like the wood gives stability and ease of mobility without having to continually tighten and loosen with a vice.

Same artist, different project.

How silver jewelry chains are made:

Making a silver turquoise ring:

Don't do this. Don't they know about the Mummy's curse?

Egyptian officials reveal sad end in case of 3.000-year-old golden pharaoh's bracelet stolen from museum

Just several days after authorities announced that a rare, 3,000-year-old golden bracelet had vanished from a restoration lab at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, the fate of the artifact has become clear: It was stolen by a restoration worker who sold it for less than $4,000, and was then melted down and lost forever.

Ummm....OK then.

Rock legend reveals that he had his body parts turned into jewelry

Elton John doesn't shy away from the strange and unusual. In his new documentary "Touched By Gold," released Monday, the legendary rocker revealed how he creatively preserved two body parts after undergoing surgery.

"When I had my kneecaps removed, the left one first and then the right, I asked my surgeon if I could keep the kneecaps, which he was rather startled about - then I rang you," John said during the filming, noting that he gave jewelry designer Theo Fennell a call. "The Rocket Man" singer then gave Fennell his kneecaps and told him to do "what you want with them" after his double knee replacement.

In the end, John's right kneecap was transformed into a sparkling gold-plated necklace, featuring a diamond-lined hole in the center.

Meanwhile, John's other kneecap, which was smaller, was turned into a brooch as they couldn't do "so much with it."

No, I have no photos of the new bling.

One year of sand casting:

There are a lot of YouTube videos of people pouring liquid aluminum into ant colonies. Probably not a great day for the ants, but the result is an organic sculpture. Anyone try this?

In case you missed the link from haffhowershower last week, this is a remarkable little project of making waves from foam for a diorama. "How interesting can it be to watch someone making waves from foam for a diorama?" Skip says it is worth watching, so isn't that enough of an endorsement?

I know what you're going to say. "I make models of military vehicles like tanks. It is more compelling to display them in an environment where they would operate instead of alone on a bland shelf. Wouldn't it be great to see a tutorial about how to build a river scene?"

More Horde Hobbying - follow up from Reforger:

This is how it started:

Follow up:

What we are looking at here is 1/2 of the Pattern. It's a two part casting that gets bolted together from tabs (lost to time and decay) that are in the back. This makes the Cope or bottom. Also visible in this picture is the outline of the Gating which is where the metal gets channeled into the mold. I'm going to have to do that totally from scratch and only have a limited amount of evidence of how deep they were, which is crucial to gettling the mold to fill properly.

This is the Pattern for the Drag for the second half of the two part piece. Even less survived of what it originally looked like. I'm not even sure if these were poured through one pour cup or two. Closest to an expert I could find told me it would have to be a really hot pour as the final product is only about a 1/4" thick which cools down really quick so it was probably 2 maybe even 3. Also told he thought it close to impossible to do with standard sand techniques and it was probably a "no bake" process. Which is out of the question for me as that stuff is toxic to everything. I'm going to try plaster as a substitute.

This one is for the photographers, astronomers and rocket enthusiasts among the Horde.

Photo by Andrew McCarthy - find him on X at AJamesMcCarthy.

This is the First-Ever Photo of Sun's Chromosphere and a Rocket Launch

What makes this image so special is that McCarthy captured the Sun in hydrogen-alpha light, revealing amazing details in the star's chromosphere that cannot be seen in normal white light. The rocket and fiery plume create shockwaves, scattering the light.

"I captured them with two types of cameras, a relatively normal Canon R5 with a solar filter on a telephoto lens, and then a specially designed solar telescope with an astronomy camera. The image I got with the solar telescope is, as far as I know, the only photo of its kind in existence - a photo of a rocket with the sun in hydrogen-alpha light behind it."

PetaPixel searched for similar photos to McCarthy's but cannot find any. While other astrophotographers have captured silhouetted airplanes with the sun in H-alpha, McCarthy is apparently the first to capture a rocket.

Zoom in and appreciate the details:

Did you miss the Hobby Thread last week? We did a surfing theme. The comments may be closed, but you can re-live the content.

Notable comments from last week:

Gold star for this comment:

Words of wisdom:

"Because despite all our troubles, when things are grim out in that wide round world of ours, that's when it's really important to have a good hobby." Posted by: tankascribe at June 22, 2024 07:41 PM (HWxAD).

If you have trouble finding something in the content or comments that resonates with you, contribute something from your personal hobbying. We will feature a different theme next time. What are you hobbying? We love showing off Horde hobbying. Send thoughts, suggestions and photos of your hobbying to moronhobbies at protonmail dot com. Do mighty things.

posted by Open Blogger at 05:30 PM

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