I make my own luck

[Elemental Dragon]

Okay, so it's more of a shamrock than a four-leaf clover, but I couldn't resist the title

The wire is some 22g enameled copper I had laying around from a wire coiling kit I got as a gift one year, colors being gunmetal and kelly green. Wire was coiled around a segment of stripped copper electrical wire (I think it was the .102" (by my measurements) segment (10AWG) Edit: Got out my calipers, and it was evidently the 14AWG copper I wound on (.08" or so)) and cut with toenail clippers. The finished inlay is 25 rings by 25 rings (625 rings) with 290 of them being gunmetal and 335 being kelly green.

I was kind of learning with the clippers, so there are plenty of bare copper spots. I'm just considering this a prototype, but I already have a request for similar projects for other holidays...from my daughter

If you don't find rambling on how a project devoloped interesting, then you should be able to skip what comes after the picture.


Shamrock inlay Photobucket directory - 3 other images including a .png and a patterned image from IGP.

So I had this wire laying around, and I was between TRL orders and was wanting to play around with some different colors. Decided the green and gunmetal would look alright together, so it was just a matter of what to do. Hmmm...colors...an inlay! But what? Hmmm...green...four leaf clover! Found an image that had the general shape I wanted, edited it down to 2 colors, resized it and ran it through IGP. Did some math to figure out what of my makeshift mandrels would give me an AR to make a nice, fairly dense European 4-in-1.

When I finished the shamrock, I had some leftover rings and needed some way to mount/display the finished piece. I ran a short segment of a small paper clip through the top row and looped it at either end. Eventually came to the decision for Byzantine for a hanging chain and found that the rings would just barely work for a nice 2 connector Byzantine. I also decide at a later point that I didn't like the inlay sliding back and forth between the loops, so at either end I linked the end rings of the top row through the loops.

[Claire]

  that is tiny!! Awesome job!!   that's totally cool, I wish I could make something that small

nail clippers huh? Just as is or did you modify them in any way? Now I wanna make something tiny like that  

[Elemental Dragon]

Eh, it's not quite as bad as the 24g Full Persian I've been playing with But it is quite different from the 14g I cut my mailling teeth on, so to speak.

The nail clippers were stock. I angled them slightly in relation to the coil and just used a corner of the blade.

[TerribleT]

That's fantastic!!   You should enter that in the Holiday contest. Shamrock=St. Pat's Day.  

[Claire]

That's fantastic!!   You should enter that in the Holiday contest. Shamrock=St. Pat's Day. 

totally!

The nail clippers were stock. I angled them slightly in relation to the coil and just used a corner of the blade.

[Elemental Dragon]

That's fantastic!!   You should enter that in the Holiday contest. Shamrock=St. Pat's Day. 

The thought crossed my mind. But, seeing as we are going to be limited to one entry per person, I'm going to see if I can't come up with something a little better done than this. Too many little flaws for me to be really confident in it. If it comes down to the wire and I haven't come up with anything else, I may do it anyway, though

Thanks for the feedback, gals.

[Corvus]

I've just commented on this on TRL. It's fantastic work, very well done.  

[DarkCelticLion]

Oh man that is sweet, seriously sweet

[zebra62]

Only one word comes to mind - WOW!

[jadedfiend]

I really like this one. Very creative.