A pair of cuff links made from casts of the Scribner Ranch Brand using Delft clay. These were originally cast when making medallions for another project (that spanned a few casting sessions, so they were not both cast during the same session), but at just over 2 mm thick they were a little too thick for the medallions I was making.
When the first one came along, instead of filing it down to the correct thickness for the medallions, I set it aside thinking I might use it for *something*, since it was a clean cast and I didn’t want to waste the effort and clay sand used.
It was when a later casting came along that was also too thick (and a clean cast as well) that I found it was literally identical in thickness to the first, and the idea of a pair of cuff links came to mind. I thought they would be ideal for that, so ran with it.
For what it’s worth, they were thicker than my brass template as I had re-pressed the template into the clay to get a clearer definition of the brand, but on these two I had obviously pressed a little too hard, making the casts thicker than I wanted for the medallions.
I wanted these cuff links to be 100% handmade, so instead of using factory-made cuff link toggle bars soldered to the backs, I decided to use chain link and cross-bars that I had fashioned myself instead.
After cutting out the brand in an oval shape, I rolled out an ingot to the thickness I wanted to use for the cross-bars as square wire, and rolled up some round wire for the cuff link back, cross-bar and O-ring chain links (testing a couple sizes of chain link O-ring sizes and number of links needed to see what fit best when used with a cuff shirt).
I then soldered on the half-rings to the backs of the casts and the O-rings onto the cross-bars, then soldered the links for the chain connecting the two, leaving the end links un-soldered until they were ready to be attached to the back of the cast faces and cross-bars.
I followed that with cleaning up the cuff link faces and cross-bars after the soldering (much easier to do at this point than after everything is connected), soldered on the chain links and readied the pieces for oxidizing and final cleanup/polishing.
Oh, and the picture of the cuff link on the shirt in the collage didn’t turn out very well (I’m not much of a photographer)… it almost looks like brass, but it’s not! 😉