Dave's Open Mic: Ep 3. - Amanda Morgan

In this episode of Dave's Open Mic Amanda talks about how she got involved in jewelry making.  From just strating out with simple equipment to how she collects stones and other pieces to use.  
#jewelery #art #stones #metal #artist

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Basicallyreplicate what you're going to be wearing.
So this is one that I madewhere I made a model of it.
And then it's like sand casting.
So it's like two.
It almost looks like a book,but there's sand on the inside
and you make the impression in the sand,
and then you close it up like thatand it's facing upward,

(00:23):
and then you have a hole at the top,and you pour the wax or the molten metal.
But it's sand doesn't like.
Yeah, it's sand.
So it doesn't it like, has it not move.
It doesn't.
You pack it.
So it's very, very compact okay.
So you make the impression,you open it back up, you take the wax
model out and then you close it back upand there's a hole at the top.

(00:47):
And then you just pour from your crucible.
So you could take like silver scraps.
Like I could take thisand put it right in the crucible.
And then you put some borax inand melt it out,
and then you pour itin the top of the mold, the sand.
Mold.
Do you have, like, jewelry that you'vebeen wearing that you don't like anymore?

(01:09):
And then you kind of melt it backdown again?
Yeah.
So that's my nextstep is going to be basically taking
all of the early, early pieces that I madethat I don't like anymore.
And I'm just going to take them apart,take the gemstones out and
basically take the silver out,

(01:30):
put it in a crucible and melt down.
That's my next stepbecause I have so much right now.
It's just like all the scraps that I have.
Okay.
So yeah, so it's accumulatedfor probably like five years now.
So who else swears like,do you give stuff away?
Do you sell it. Do you usually sell it?

(01:50):
Okay.
On my Instagram is like a big oneor yeah, I would say add
some more on Instagram than anywhere else,but I have a website.
I just don't really advertise itas much as I should.
I don't know if I've been on your websiteand I think I, I should have yeah.
It's Leo Moon design, so. There you go.
We'll say that again at the end. Yeah.

(02:11):
And that's cool.
So my stuff's up there, trying to do more
vendor eventsthis summer and the spring time.
I actually have a vendor event coming up.
It's with service master,but it's not our office.
It's the Waterbury office.
And it's
a fundraising event for,like, burn victims and.

(02:33):
Oh, cool. Yeah.
All right, that's. A good. Cause.That's good.
I could send you the details.
Yeah. Some details. Yeah, yeah,we talked about that.
That's cool.
So we were talking about necklaces.
Do you do necklaces or not?
I can yeah,I don't do the chains themselves.
That'd be complicated.
Yeah, I don't usually do the chains.
Like, usually I'll buy, like a silverplated chain and then I can make pendants.

(02:57):
Okay.
So pendants are usually very similarto like the rings
where if it's a gemstone ring,I can make like
you basically take a flat sheetand then you take some bezel wire
and you wrapthe bezel wire around your stone,
and then you obviously take the stone outso you don't burn it,

(03:18):
because you have to torch everything.
Everything has to be a certain temperaturefor the solder to flow.
So you torch it
and you take so you take the bezel wire
and then you solder it onto a flat sheet.
And then there's like.
What's file a flash sheet.

(03:40):
A flat sheet.
Oh flat.So it's like a flat sheet of silver.
So like it almostlooks like a like piece of paper.
Imagine a piece of paperthat looks like silver.
Okay. Yeah.
All right.How much do you spend on silver?
I used to spend a lot,like, flashy is, like, pretty expensive.

(04:00):
Okay. But it takes me a while.
It depends on, like,
the size of the gemstone,because, like, the bigger the gemstone.
So, like, say, this is like a flat sheet.
Say, this is like, the size of right here.
Yeah.
You take your gemstone and youput it on here, and then you cut it out.
Okay.
And then you wouldwrap bezel wire around it.

(04:22):
So it depends on how big your stone is.
Okay. Yeah.
So you don't make a ring
and then like figure outwhat you have to have this.
You have to knowhow big the stone is first
and kind of do all that stuffbefore you even start. Yeah.
I mean generallylike you can use any size stone
and like your actual basecould be any size, but

(04:48):
I guess, like,
I guess you could do any size,but like the bigger it's
if you have a huge stone, thenyou might want to change up your design
for the actual,Which we'll call it, because I like that.
That's cool. It has like.
It's pretty thick.
It has like, like a, like texture on it.

(05:09):
Yeah.
And it
but then it's not all the way round andit's like kind of smooth on the other end.
Yeah.
So the, the idea behind this one wasI wanted to do like a crocodile theme.
So I took a piece of wax and basically
carved it out with filesand made the design.
And honestly,it didn't come out that good at first.

(05:31):
And then I just afterwardswhen it came out, I filed it.
I started making like more impressionshere and then I polished it out.
You do the filing when it's hardened oryou have do when it's a little bit soft.
Still.
I do it when it's hardened. Okay. Yeah.
Because it's like a diamond.
I forget what you call
it, like diamond blade or okay.

(05:52):
It's like a high grit filewhere it's just like.
It's pretty effortless. Gotcha.
Yeah. Okay.
Yeah. I'm not like a professional.
I just kind of mess around in the studiolike last night
I was doing one, and it's like, heart,
basically her ring.
So I'm literally just messing around

(06:13):
and it's actually coming out pretty good.
Like when you're making the wax partand you're carving it out.
My favorite part,it looks pretty crappy in the beginning.
Like when you first get it to look,you know, it's pretty rough shape,
but then you can, like, touch itwith the torch and it obviously melts

(06:34):
a little bit, but it makes it, like,really crisp and divine.
You can't see like the file marks,
whereas like with silver, when you'refiling something down, it looks rough.
But then you like take your polishers,which is like a Dremel tool.
Can you like ruin silver?
Can you like overheated or burn it?
Or you can, not ruin it, but

(06:56):
you get like burn marks basically.
So like, read, burn marks on the silver.
But like, I
always have thatbecause like when you're soldering, like
you have to reach a certain temperaturefor the star to flow.
So it's going to make it like look red orblack or all sorts of like discoloration.

(07:21):
But then you put it in an ultrasoniccleaner, which is basically a solution.
They call it pickle solution, and it's
citric acid and water.
So there's like the measurements you do.
Oh I think it's like like a third cupcitric acid
and then like three cups of waterand the ultrasonic cleaner vibrates.

(07:45):
And that
acid will actually removeit'll like basically strip
the whole entire thing,the whole entire silver piece.
So it almost looks a weightwhen you pull it out.
Okay.
And then from there
you polish it with like a Dremel tool.
So I have different dremel bits.

(08:06):
It's like a lot of investment.
It is. It's a lot of investment.
But it's a hobby that I really I love I,
I always it's therapeutic for me.
Yeah. Good. I could see that.
Yeah.
Like you're in the spaceand maybe a little music or something
when you're hanging out in your,the wine or something.
Yeah. Yeah, definitely.
That was me last night making, wax.

(08:27):
Yeah, but trusting the processis, like, super important for me
because I used to get so discouraged
at first,and I'm like, I'm awful at this. And
all my all my pieces look like garbage.
And then I just kept at it.
And I've noticed such a difference.

(08:48):
And you have. Yeah.
So is there like a technique you like,try to do like a year ago or something
and you couldn't do itand now you're sort of figured out and.
Yeah, the polishing.
Oh really?
Polishing is the hardest part for me.
Really.
You would think that'd be like,just polish polishing.
Yeah. Well, there's different set of.
So basically you use a Dremel,

(09:09):
which like you have your dremeland then you have your dremel bits
which are all differentkinds of dremel bits.
Basically polishers.
Some of them are really hard.
Some of them are very fine,like almost like common.
And then so you have your bitsand then you have

(09:30):
your polishing compounds,which are all different grits.
So like you use a rougher grit.
They call it red rouge for like a really,to kind of get out to scratches
is like the really defined, like,
imperfections, I guess.
And then you move on to this,like bluish compound.

(09:53):
I don't know its exact name,but that's what I use.
Second and it polishes it up so nice.
But I found that the casting
polish is like so much easier.
It's like, oh, literally mirror or like.
Oh. Nice.
Very nice.
Yeah, yeah. I've never had this polished.

(10:16):
I don't, I don't really want to.
I think it would take away because I likethat it's dark, but it has a contrast.
And then this one, when I brought itbecause I had to have it sized,
it was like filthy and so gross. Yeah.
And he shined it up.
It's cool.
It's, It's got like,signs of the zodiac and stuff on it.
And know if I showed you that.
Yeah, it's pretty cool.
So could you do would you work, could youdo something like that or would you.

(10:37):
I mean, that's I could.
It would take a very long time.
Yeah. Something like that.
You basically. I wonder if.
I, they had to cut it
and then make it bigger.
So there's like, you know,you could probably see that.
But they did a good job.
They did a good job.
Oh you think it's casted.

(10:58):
It's hard to tell.
Like right now I'm looking for likea soldering joint and I don't see one.
Oh that's good.
So yeah.
Then they polish that out or.
Because they didhave to add material to it I think.
Are they.
Because I don't thinkthey could stretch it
because it was originally a pinky ringand I made it bigger.
Yeah. You can usually always size up.

(11:20):
Yeah.
But sizing down you basicallyhave to cut it and remove material.
Yeah.
So sizing up, you know,I guess it depends on your method.
Like there's a bunch of different methodsfor everything silversmithing.
Like you can do
a million
different other things and achievethe same result in silversmithing.

(11:41):
So it's like peoplehave all different methods.
So you kind of just like find your own.
Because it's a kind of a soft metal.
Right?
So it's pliableand you can, stretch it or whatever.
Yeah. Yeah.
So like for me, if I was going to size up,I would take, a mandrel,
which is like a metal rod looking thingwhere it goes like,

(12:02):
bigger and hammer down.
Okay.
And like, that makes the silver thinner,but you can size it up.
So I had a size this one up like a ton,but because it's so thick,
I can size it up a lot.
Less so.
But it will go just get thinner.
Yeah, I would just get thinner.

(12:22):
All right.
But if I was going to size it down,I would have to cut it.
Okay.
And then for a movea little bit of material,
whether I file it or cut some off.
And then reason for the joint.
Was the first thing you made.
The first thing I made was a ring.
And honestly,I don't know if I still have it.

(12:45):
It was.
I bought a bunch of cheap cabochonson Amazon.
Or what's.
It's like a gemstone, basically,but it's like rounded,
which I actually just started to learnhow to do that too.
Okay.
So you basically I don't knowif it's real or not,
the first one that I made,but it was like a, a blue stone

(13:08):
and it's round at the topand then flat at the bottom.
So you wrap the bezel wire around it.
Okay. And I make it all right.
It's cool. Yeah.
I know it's probablyso hard for you to like.
I'm trying to like, yeah, pictureall this. Are going to have to.
Yeah.You have to send me some pictures with it.
If you have pictures of like,you make and stuff.
Yeah. So do you have any pictures of youmaking stuff?

(13:29):
You have pictures of finished products?
Obviously I do, I have a pictureon my phone's another room,
but I do have a picture of a cabochonthat I made.
It's a picture, Jasper. Okay.
Because I joined the lapidary Center.
So the Gem and Mineral Club in Meriden

(13:52):
and Bristol has a gem in Mineral Club,
and you basically pay $10 a year.
I think it was 10 or $15 a year.
And you have access to the Lapidary Center, which is like
thousands of dollars of machinerythat you can just go.
And oh, that's cool. Man.

(14:12):
So that's a whole other story.
If you want to get into it,you can get to it.
But, well, I don't even knowreally what any of that is.
So lapidary.It's like how you make cabochons.
So it doesn't really help much. But
so, okay,
so say you're going to like,walk down the street and you find like

(14:33):
a really cool rock and you're like, wow,that's like really interesting.
It could be like feldspar, could be likea garnet, or it could be whatever.
And like, I could do that.
Pick up a rock from the side of the roadand bring it to the lapidary center,

(14:53):
and you slab itso you could basically cut it
into little slices,
and then you turn it into something for,
gemstone, where it's like a lot of,
the machinery cabKing is like what I want.

(15:14):
That's like my dream machinery.
But you basically have,like, grinding wheels.
Okay.
So you first, the first stepwould be to, like, take a saw.
It's like a saw that drips water.
So you take your rock and you slab it.
You know, could you do anyI mean, you could do any rock, but.

(15:35):
Yeah, you could pretty much do any rockexcept there's like limitations
for the gem and mineral show or club.
So like the limits there,you can't use resin, which is like
basically the reason for their limitations
is that they dispose their.

(15:57):
The scraps and dust just outside.
So it has to be like, sustainable, like,It can't.
Happen. So it can't be like tiger's eye.
It can't be like toxic material.What's tiger's eye?
Tiger's eye is a gemstone that is toxic.
It is apparently toxic in dust formlike malachite is toxic.

(16:21):
Is malachite that like.
It's like greenish.
That you canyou find that like an everyday rock?
Like around not around here. Okay.
Think that's stuff you find likesometimes you find.
I remember when I was a kid,I would find any break this rock.
Quartz probably.
Quartz maybe that it would be like thislike cool.
Like it's sometimes it's kind of thin.
Was like paper thin like shiny.

(16:42):
Yeah. It was probably. Oh, maybe it was,
Oh, there's a lot of different.
I can't remember it.
Has it, like, crumble really easily.
I think it crumbles.
I can't think of the name,but I know what you're talking about.
I'm not an expert in rocks yet either.
Okay.
But, around here, you can find quartz.

(17:04):
You can find garnets.
Garnets are a big thing in Connecticut.
Southbury, South. Poor.
You can find a lot of garnetsthere, like a reddish stone.
A lot of timesyou'll find, like, small ones
like to get garnets.
A lot of people will, like, sift,almost like gold, gold panning.

(17:29):
So they'll pan it and they'll find, like,little tiny garnets.
Like, where would you fall?
Like in the rivers or something?
Rivers.I do find a good stuff on the beach.
Yeah. Agates are a big one on the beach.
Like like like the Great Lakes.
You can find a lot of really cool agates.

(17:49):
Yeah, I
guess are really cool because you can see,like, the ribbon ING on them.
So, like,if you're looking for a cool rock,
like a big indicatoris like the ribbon ING.
Oh, I've seen rocks like that.
Yeah, yeah, yeah,I usually keep them or something or.
Yeah, whatever.Those are cool. Yeah. That's cool.
But commonly, just like quartz,
there's all different kinds of quartz,

(18:09):
I guess.
Do you buy most of your rocks?
Do you, do like or did you,
do you find stuffand then like, oh, this is kind of cool.
I want to make something out of it.
Yeah.
I used to buy a lot of them.
Turquoise is a big one that I buy.
I can't find turquoise around here. No.Yeah.
You'd have to go outto, like, Colorado or Arizona.
Okay. Yeah.

(18:29):
The person I buy it fromis based in Colorado.
Okay.
But, Yeah,you can find a lot of cool stuff.
So your favorite is, is is what is itlike working with,
like, stones and, like,making rings out of stones and stuff?
Or are you just, like, doingjust like the ring?
Like just silver? All 100% silver.
You don't really have a favorite yet.

(18:50):
I would sayI always love the silversmithing
because it's more forgivingthan anything else.
I mean, honestly, like lapidary,
I'm still so new with it, but it's.
That's the cutting of the.
Cutting on the stoneand grinding it down,
making it into athe on is what they call. It.

(19:14):
Okay. But I find that it's
like I enjoy it a lot.
Yeah.
But I find that it's like a little bitmore challenging, probably because I'm new
and I also don't have that manythe material for it.
Yeah, I've been collecting rocks lately.So okay.
Hopefully find some more nice rocks.
Summer's coming. Yeah.

(19:36):
Like down by mystic and South Paw.
You can find some cool rocks on the beach.Yeah.
When you're out driving around for workyou can like take a break and go.
Yeah.
Some people I've watched videoson YouTube of people that there was a guy
that found this really cool rock inlike an Ikea parking lot.

(19:57):
Like you can find them anywhere.
It just depends on, you know, if you know
what's good and like,it doesn't even have to be that good.
Like, I was at the Lapidary Center.
Oh. Was
like a couple weeks ago,and one of the people
there was made a beautiful cabochonout of feldspar.
He was like, this is like one of the mostcommon rocks that you'll find.

(20:21):
And it looks so beautiful.
Like he made it into a nice cabochon,like some jewelry.
I guess once you start, like, lookingjust like anything, right?
If you start sort of paying attention andlooking around, you'll notice stuff that
people,I mean, don't even know it's there.
Yeah. You start to pick up on it. Yeah.
Like 100%.
I was not much actually.
You know, it's kind of interestingbecause like as a kid I used to

(20:45):
hunt for rocks, like in the same way
where my dad, like, built these little
we called them rock shops or like,smash open Rocks.
And you would find, like,look at the crystals inside.
A lot of it was probably corvettesand yeah, not very expensive stones.
But it's cool. It's in there.

(21:06):
Anything. It's just a stone. Right.
And you busted open.
Yeah. There's like surprises in there.
Yeah. So I was always fun.
Just like smashing rocks.
Yeah, yeah.
That's cool.You have brothers and sisters?
I have.
Two sisters.They smash rocks with you? Yep.
And we used to sell them for, like.
You know, get out. Piggy banks.
And we use, just basically traded

(21:28):
our stones for pennies and.
Oh, that's cool. Dimes.
If they're, like, really nice,
you know, looking rocks,we would sell them for more expensive.
Like,what would you sell me in our backyard?
So it's like side of the road.People would stop.
No, it was more like our neighborsbecause, like, we had,
like, a pretty tight knit, neighborhood growing up.

(21:50):
So, like, we knew all the kids.
There's kids all over in my street.
So they would come overand it was mostly among us.
That's kind of cool. Yeah.
So yeah, you're growing it now.
Now you're selling full on jewelry.
Yeah.
It's kind of funnylooking back on it, though,
like I used to be really into itwhen I was a kid.
And now I'm pretty muchdoing the same thing on

(22:11):
not like a larger scale,but like, more polished scale.
I. Guess.
So where's your shop?
It's like been your apartment or houseor wherever.
My house?
No, not my house. My parent's house.
Yeah. So my parents.
But I have, an art roomwhere I have, like, my desk.
Okay.
And that's all I need, really is my desk.

(22:32):
I have, like, a table and a deskand all my stuff that I just make art.
Well. Nice.
So what do you play?
You keep folks awake when you're like.
Sometimes when I'm hammering,it depends on what I'm doing.
Like, casting isn't as noisy,but like, when I'm doing, like,
actual silversmithing,like soldering and manipulating metal,

(22:53):
I'm like, banging around.
So I can't really do that. I like a lot.
And I don't know. Yeah.
But I like to stay up lateand work on our.
And I get to like, the like is allI usually do, all the steps
until I start to like need to bangand I'm like, okay, I'll like wait
till the morning. Yeah.
Like bang around. In the sun.

(23:14):
There's something you do every day.
Pretty much.
I try, but usually it'll be like,
my goal is like once a week
to get a piece done.
So I should be doing it more
aggressively.
Yeah.
One piece a week is my goal.
Yeah. That's good.

(23:35):
So mostly rings, some pendants.
Yeah. Right.
Earrings or earrings.
Yeah. There you go. That's a good one.
I did a chain once.
I try to Cuba Cuban link chain.
And what's what's that?
It's basically, a form of chain.
There's so many different ones. Like,I don't even.

(23:56):
Know what this one is.
Yeah, that would be like.
This is really.
Like, you could
you could make that, but, like,how would you make
if you somebody said like,make me one of those chains.
Like,you'd have to buy like some I'm guessing,
like really thin wireand just sort of braid it.
Is that how it would be done?
So the way I made.
Yeah.
Like this would be very, very thin wire.

(24:18):
So like probably like 24 gauge wire.
Probably way,
way thinner than that.
Because this is like really, really thin.
Like a thread like a. Yeah.
Sewing thread type.
Like, I don't even knowhow you would solder this without it.
Like because you mentioned before, like,can it get destroyed like.

(24:39):
A. Jump ring?
If you're going to try to solder
jump ring together,it could completely like disintegrate.
Okay.
You have it at a too high heat.
Because you could like, heat it upand it would just like, so yeah.
Go away.
Yeah. Basically.
But it's actually kind of interesting,like, because it doesn't really go away.
It just kind of like will like,not be a perfect circle anymore.

(25:05):
So that's like a big thing.
But what's interesting isI discovered this, like Whaley,
I feel likethis is like a very basic, like,
silversmithing thing, but I just kind oflike, was messing around and I realizes
if you take, like, scrap silverand you take a torch to it
on a soldering block, obviouslybecause you want to be safe.

(25:26):
But if you just keep torching itand you get it to high heat,
it'll just turn into a bar.
So like, you could take like this,I mean, this probably wouldn't work,
but it had it would have to be likea, like basically a piece of silver.
Like it could be like a scrap piece,and then you torture it

(25:47):
and then it just like, turns into a ballif you just keep torching it.
Really? Yeah. Like a wooden, like
melt and dribble all over the place.
So like it wouldif you have it on a soldering block,
like a flat surface soldering block,
it would turn into a circlelike a perfect circle.

(26:07):
It's actually really cool.That's really cool.
But you're heating it with like, dude,you buy like the direct fire to it or.
Yeah. It turns into a ball.
Yeah it does. It's really small.
So a lot of people will use that as like
an embellishment,like they'll do tiny little silver balls.
I was like how do people do that.

(26:27):
Because I see it online,other silversmiths
and I'm like looking onlinelike how do I like buy a silver ball?
And then I like realize that they're justtaking a little piece of silver
and torching itand turning it into a ball.
So they're not cast like thatring or something.
They're just they just torch it like that,
and then you would polish it and smooth itout, whatever.
And then you're ready to go.

(26:48):
It's pretty much yeah,yeah it's mo sometimes it comes out
like pretty polished,but if you're going to put it on a piece,
like you just polish it outwith the rest of the.
Could you make a necklace with those?
With those maybe. That'd be cool.
Just like a bunch of like silver.
Yeah, yeah.
Or like or like, like half to be like hat.

(27:10):
And then the restwould be like a chain or something.
Yeah.
There's like certain chainsthat look like that where it's like a ball
and then it's like, like a piece of wire in between.
Yeah. And you make a necklace out of it.
I don't know if that's how they make it,but I've seen similar chains before.
So do you likeyou probably learn, like, a lot

(27:31):
just from doing just, like,any art or craft or anything.
Yeah,
but do you like, like, look at YouTubevideos, like, how do you do that.
Yeah. Yeah.
Like especially the Lapitalike when I'm learning something new like
polishing I like
I learned just by watching videos.
Yeah.
Even like I want to say like six monthsbefore I made an investment

(27:53):
in like all the materialI was watching videos, like
just watching people make ringsand that's how I.
They just started.
When did you start?
Did I ask you that? I'm just,
I started probably about five years ago.
Could I say.
Just you kind of want to do it since.

(28:15):
Yeah, I would say the reason I did it was
someone had asked me,
I okay, so initially I was doing, like,resin work,
so I was making, like,I was pressing flowers, making, like,
ashtrays and pendants,but I would buy the pendants.

(28:35):
And then someone asked me, like, do you,would you make this into a ring?
So I ended up buying, like on Amazon.
Like,
basically a ring with like the bezel cup.
Okay.
So it's like basically a circleand I just like bought
that, off Amazon
and then just didlike the put the resin in the bezel

(28:58):
and did the dried flowers in thereand let it sit.
And it looked great, but I was like,can I just do this myself?
And then I kind of, yeah,
just started researching itand kind of just went from there.
And here you are.
Just gethow far you think you're going to go.
You don't know. You just like doing itnow. Like this isn't.
I think my new thingis probably going to be silver casting.

(29:23):
Okay.
Becauselike you have so much more creativity,
there's more that you can do.
I mean, I guess I could do a lotwith regular silver spoon thing,
but I would say casting is a bigone for me.
Like, I want to get really into thatand hopefully chains do more chains.

(29:45):
But it's so time. Consuming.
Would you be doingwould you do other stuff like
that's not jewelry like like figurines or.
Probably I mean, I could.
See those would be cast, right?
I would think. Yeah, probably.
Like I saw someone do for silver casting.
They did like a chess set, which is crazybecause that's a lot of silver.

(30:09):
But you can, like, make the impressionin the sand for all the chess pieces.
So he did that.
So that you could you could so you coulduse, like, actual chess pieces.
But if you want to do an original
like figurine thing,you'd have to make that out of wax.
Or it's reallyjust the impression people use wax

(30:30):
because they can
kind of build on it, andit's like an easier material to work with.
But like,I've seen people take like a tooth
and make the impressionall about the impression.
So like, you can really do anything.
Like I could make a cast out of.
I don't know.
I could redo this ring,

(30:51):
you know, byputting this actual ring in the sand.
And that impression iswhat's going to be felled by silver.
I'll find some. I'll find some for you.
Yeah. You may cast for me.
Yeah, you can pretty much do anything.
I find. Some.
Most things, but there's like, lost wax,which is like a different form
of wax casting, which you can get really,really fine details in there.

(31:15):
Okay. You can't really do with sand. Yeah,
but I don't know how the sand. So.
But can you, do you reuse the sand.
Can you like.
Okay.
Yeah.
You can reuse it a bunch of timesbasically.
So the sand
trying to see how I can explain this.

(31:36):
The sand basically it's like burned
like when you take it out after it'sbeen casted,
there's like a little burnt piecearound the actual impression.
You could just scrape it outand reuse the sand.
So you can keep reusing the sandas many times as you want.
So like, it's got to be likesome sort of special fine grained sand.

(31:57):
I think it's. Like.
Oh, I wish I knew the name.
It's not like Home Depot playground sand.
No, no, no,it's like very specific type of sand.
Yeah, but it's a lot of fun. Yeah.
That's cool.
Yeah, I could seethat would be kind of fun
because you could make theyou make the item
or you figure out what it is,you brainstorm, like what I want to make.
And then you can either make it or find it

(32:18):
and then
you're like, yeah, you pourthe molten, silver in there.
People get really creative with it, too.
Like I sawsomeone do like a human to earrings.
Really.
Just, like, took like a human tooth and,like, made the impression
and then made them into, like, studsand, like, that's pretty crazy.

(32:38):
Like, it's like that's going home. Yeah.
So, like, you could.
I would think they'd hang though,like a human tooth.
What would be.
And it depends on the size of the toothI think.
Yeah.
But it was a bigger toothlike the roots and everything.
Gotta be kind of cool.
I thought it was a pretty cool thing.Yeah.
So I pretty muchdo a lot of different things.
Like. Yeah, the creativity is endless.

(32:59):
Like you could do whatever you want.Yeah. That's wild.
Now, what about other metals?
I think we talked about thislast time I saw.
Yeah. Like gold.
Gold is gold.
Harder to work with? And silver.
I don't do gold casting,but I think you need to use.
I think it has a higher melting point.
And I think you have to usea certain type of solder.

(33:20):
Okay, so it's a little different,but like 9 to 5 silver,
like when you're casting you add like,a little bit of copper in it.
To make it.
Okay.
Five because like silver itself is pretty,
not like malleable,but it's like not as hard.

(33:42):
Okay.
So most silver jewelry have like.
A little bit of copper and a.
Little bit just a okay.
Can you buy
like different qualities of silver.
Like to work with.
Yeah. You can buy like point.
So like the bezel wirethat I use is like .999.

(34:03):
It's like a fine silverbut it's still silver.
It's just like more flimsythan regular silver.
And then there's like 9 to 5,which is like hard or silver.
Okay.
But like gold is like pretty
like malleable like gold itself.

(34:24):
You can, like, take up its scratchesand I'm sure
they add certain things to itto make it harder, like silver.
Now you said you added borax.
That's like that cleaner.
Like that's what is it like. It's like.It's like powder or.
Powder stuff and people clean with it.And I've heard that.
Yeah. Does that like burn away.Does it stay in there. Like.

(34:45):
And why do you add that.
So it removes the impurities
of whatever you are casting.
So you'll actually seethe impurities on the crucible.
So it's kind of cool.
Like you can see like all thesedifferent colors in the Crucible
because it's like removingall those impurities from the silver.

(35:07):
So like when you're casting it, silveris like what's left.
So people out copper to make it more hard.
But the borax is. What pulls out.
So it'll pull it out and leave it behind.That's wild.
Yeah, that's really interesting.That's really cool.
You still like surprised? Like,
oh myGod, I can't believe that worked her.

(35:28):
Yeah, sometimes.
Sometimes it doesn't work right away.
And so like redo it.
So it's like trial and errora lot of the time it's
not very like it'snot like there's a lot of room for error.
Gotcha.
Yeah, yeah.
What I mean,so are you artist like naturally.
Is this something that's sort of likedo you like, draw or paint or.

(35:51):
I'm not really into painting my.
Sister or something, okay?
My sister's a big painter.
Or she's like, graphic design artist, screen
printer, but
my mom's always been artist.
My dad's artistic.
He's, he does his drivewaycrack, Phil, basically.
And he's like, this is an art.

(36:13):
So he gives, he fills, cracks.
Yeah, for a living.
And you have to make them look pretty. Do.
And I've done it for him before.
Not like the actual crack fell, butthere's like a whole process behind it.
And I've helped himwith, like filling the, cracks
with rocks and things and he,he claims to be a big artist.
All right, too.

(36:34):
So I think our family isjust very creative in general.
Nice. Yeah.
What's your mom do? Art wise?
So art wise, she has always been involved,like, as kids, like in the art.
Art, classrooms.
And things should always volunteer. Okay.
Help us that way.
So, I mean, she's an insurance agent now,but she was very,

(36:57):
like, into the arts,when we were growing up.
So she was always like,volunteering in the classroom.
Let's go.
Yeah. No, I think it's fun.It's fun. I still got my kids like,
drawings and whatnot.
Yes. Of course. Yeah. And some of them.
My daughter still kind ofdoes some art stuff.
And then, my son is actually my oldest son

(37:20):
just got a jobwith an asphalt testing company.
Oh that's cool. So it's similar.
Yeah, I he'll go and, like,pull core samples and like,
it's quite it's like fascinating.
It's like, kind of likethe jewelry stuff was like I had no idea.
It's like there's a lot involved and,it's like heat and material
and pressure and kind of same thing.

(37:41):
Yeah.
My dad is like, big on the asphalt thing.
Yeah. That's wild.
He does the whole crack full and makes
it look really nice for those cracks.
So I was like parking lots and nice.
The whole. Nine.
Is it his business or.
Oh nice run out.
Shout out.
Driveways by Doug.

(38:01):
Driveways by Doug.All right, all right. That's cool.
All right I feel like that is part of it.
It's like my familybeing so involved in art and music too.
Like, my grandpa is a drummer.
He used to do like, weddings and my. Okay.
Oh, it's a big drummer. My cousin.
We're also like really into,like the music stuff.

(38:23):
Yeah. I was into like the creative.
Yeah. World.Yeah. We're talking about that.
What, what, you saw a bandrecently? What the heck was it?
The last band I saw trying to think
as, Because you're in heavy.
I think you're in kind of heavier.Meaning it was knocked loose.

(38:45):
Was the last, last band I saw.
Oakdale. Okay.
My sisterlikes to bring me to concerts, so.
Yeah. You like heavy stuff, though, like.
Yeah, yeah,but not all, like, I'm very broad.
Okay. Like, very,very broad with my music.
Tastes like I'll listento, like, heavier stuff like Korn.
Slipknot. Yeah, that's what I was. Yeah.

(39:06):
But I also listened to like, Bonnie Fair.
And like, I don't know, that.
Acoustic, Okay.
Stuff are also listened to like rap and.
All right, all. Sorts of. Stuff.That's good.
I don't define myself by like one genre.
I think there's a lot. Yeah. So
be, you know, appreciative of.
Yeah. There's a lot of music out there.

(39:28):
Yeah. I, shout out, I'll do a shout out.
There's this place called the Juke Upin deep River.
I just discovered the open in December.
So it's like a music venue.
They have a little bar,and it's kind of like loungy.
And there's no, like, seat. It's not aI mean, it's not like a bar bar.
It's like they have a room with a bar,but then they have a whole separate area
where the bands play.
It's small. It's like as big as this room.

(39:48):
The space.
And, yeah, this shows sound systems.
Great.
And that's fun.
You've been to the placenext to Crosspoint.
I rememberwe went to the Shoreline Chamber.
Were you at?Oh, yeah. You were at that one.
No, I didn't, I saw that I've heard of it.
I have never been there.Apparently they do live music. Yeah.
Friday. What's it called?
I don't know,I don't remember the name of it.

(40:11):
Oh. Feels is bad.
I shouldn't even have mentioned.
No, we'll think of it. No,because it's on the tip of my tongue.
Or think of it.It's like one word. I think. Like it.
I don't know,
but I think they just got,like, new owners or something.
And I've been meaning to go.
But they do live music too.
Anywhere with live music is really cool.

(40:31):
Yeah.
No, I've heard of itbecause the guy who was on the show,
Mike Lewis, plays there sometimes.
I'm pretty sure I've seen him.
I've been there, but I don't know. Yeah.
Anyway, I'm sorry. We'll figure it out.
Yeah.
The place next across point in Branford,whatever that's called.
Go there.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Get out in Branford.

(40:51):
Yeah, we'll think of it. Yeah. Right on.
So, what other kind of,
like, jewelry paraphernaliado you have to make?
So you got a torch?
You got, like,some sort of small anvil thing, right?
Yeah. So I have, like, a vise.
I have a soldering block, I have files.

(41:12):
What else?
How much are you, moneywise, invested in here?
So my initial investment trade,
my initial, like when I first got,like, to make a ring,
I spent about $500 total on, like,
silver wire, flashy soldering,black torch.

(41:35):
It's not terrible.
What else did I buy?
Tweezers.
Like, pick the actual silver piece.
Ultrasonic cleaner.
What else?
I'm trying to think of?
What other materials.

(41:55):
Oh. Citric acid.
Okay, what's that for? The cleaning.
Yeah,it's like the pickle solution, basically.
So it, like, turns a piece awayand it, like, strips it of all the heat,
discoloration.
And what, you ever, like, burn yourself?
Yeah, plenty of time. Yeah.

(42:17):
Well, the thing for me is, like,I'll be kind of careless sometimes,
so, like, I'll be working on a pieceand it won't be, like, super hot.
Like I can tolerate it.
Like I see it get, like, red,and then it's like,
not red anymore, and, like,kind of starts to look like silver again.

(42:37):
And, like,
when I have to move it,sometimes I'm like, okay.
I'm just gonna.
Touch it and I can tolerate itbecause, like, it doesn't feel as hot.
But then the next morning I'll wake upand it'll be like a huge.
Blistering my thumb. So I do that.
Yeah, I've done with the cast iron.
I'll put castiron out on the on the grill,

(42:58):
then I'll bring it insidewith, you know, potholder or whatever.
Then I'll put on the stoveand then I got to move it.
It's like a minute laterand I forget that.
I just pick it up and I like,you know, burn my hand.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
That's like the same thing.
It's like you don't feel likeit's that hot until you wake up
and you're like,wow. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

(43:21):
So I do that a lot.
When I have, like, solder.
Yeah. The actual silver.
But like, realistically, you really onlyneed like a soldering block,
which is likeyou could just get, like a solder, like,
soldering block or a charcoal block.

(43:43):
Basically, like, you can clean it.
You don't even need an ultrasonic cleaner.
You can use, like, tumbler.
Some people do that.
So if somebody wanted to, like,
it would be a good investment,including, like, enough material
to make, like a half dozen ringsor some nice pieces of jewelry.

(44:03):
But it would be the initial investment,you think?
Probably like,
I would say in today's
economy, probably like close to $500.
Okay. Honestly. All right. Because like,
I mean, if you want to make, like,one ring,
you'd really just need,it would be hard to make one ring.

(44:25):
You probably make
if you made stacker rings.
Like, if you bought like, a wire.
It really depends onwhat kind of wire you're getting.
Like for just getting, like 16gauge sterling silver wire from Amazon.
It's probably like I thinkthe price of silver changes so much, but
like probably like roughly $30

(44:46):
for like a full.
Foot and a half.
And what would you do with that wire.
So you cut it.
So you would measure outlike 58mm is usually like a size seven.
So you take a wireand then measure it out to like 57mm.

(45:06):
And then it's like just
like a piece of wire.
And then you shape it like you will.
You don't even really have to shape itright away.
You would just take thatand like put the joint together
and then solder that joint togetherand then you would shape it on a mandrel.
So I guess you need a soldering block,

(45:29):
silver wire, a torch.
You'd probably need a. Yeah.
See this is where it gets like hard.
You probably do need a lot.
You need your, ultrasonic cleaner or piccolo solution.
And how big would the ringhow thick would the ring be, though?

(45:50):
If it's just.
This just 16 gauge, it would be, like,
real.
Probably real fun. Yeah.
Like that ring.
Like the one you've been showing me like.
This that.
That's cast. Right. So that's different.
Yeah. That would be.
Because I couldn't imagine a ringbeing made out of what I have.
It would be really thin.

(46:11):
Yeah. Wire.
I mean it depends like 16gauge wire is like pretty standard.
Did you see.Is that where you started like making.
Yeah. Rings out of that. Yeah.
I started with like 16 gauge. Okay.
I think about that sizewhich is like not that not that thin.
Right. It actually goes down.
So like if I was going to do like 18 gaugethat would be thinner.

(46:32):
Right? 20 gauge. Thinner.
You can do like half round
which is like round on the top,flat on the bottom,
which I like, I usually like to do like,
you know, ten gauge, eight gain.
Okay. Yeah.
It's going a little thicker.
Yeah. Okay.

(46:52):
Yeah that's cool. But you like casting.
You'd rather do thatnow. Casting is my favorite. Yeah.
Yeah yeah. That's because it's like fun.
You can like make your designand then pour.
Yeah I think that's the funpart is like mixing all the metal and.
Yeah. Nice.

(47:12):
Any requests like people like,besides somebody mind you, to make
I'll put a stone or somethinglike the first one, but
any requests latelyof some people want you to make stuff?
Yeah.
I had, someone reach out to me.
Last week,which I haven't had a chance yet,
but she bought thesethis pair of earrings that I.

(47:34):
They're like dangle earrings.
They're
basically had some pearls on the bottom
with, like, some silver chain, like,probably about this, like, size.
It was like the first pair
of dangle earrings that I've ever made.

(47:55):
So I was like, I guess she lost one.
So she was looking for, one more.
And I was like,I was just about give you the two
because, like, you supported me for, like,so many years.
And, yeah,they're basically dangling earrings.
Let's go.
There like, like the wire.

(48:16):
Like loop.
I'm not going to, like, describe it.
I kind of get it. Dangle earrings. Yeah.
They kind of like, glue itand they go through and they. Yeah.
Yeah I get. You.
Yeah.
So they're like, yeah, they dangleand then there's like
little pearls at the bottom.
So that's probablywhat I'm going to do this weekend.
Cool. Like dangles.
Will be good weekend for.
My last request, but I'll be bendinga little bit this summer.

(48:41):
So yeah. So,
Stony CreekFarmers Market, I gave you that info.
Do you reach out yet?
No, not not yet.
I've just been so busy, it's hard to like,
do, art and, like, work full time.
Yeah.
Like, You know, the work thinggets in the way, don't it?

(49:04):
Yeah. It's aggravating.
Especially when we have networkingmeetings at night and I'm.
Like, yeah. Tired after.
So it's hard to like, do it every dayand stay consistent with it.
Yeah.
But I try the weekends are my my time.
Yeah. I got to get you info for New Haven.
I think you do. Yeah, I think you do.
Well there for not only yourwhere you work for, but your jewelry too.

(49:26):
You could talk about it there. Yeah. Yeah.
Talk about the Madison chambera little bit.
Yeah I don't, I don't do there.
I've been to one of theirmeetings so I'm not a member.
I just, I don't, I just haven't,I don't know seven there.
Okay. They're pretty good. Are they.All right.
Are you got to say that right.
No, no, they are good.
No I know, I know Don, I know Don.

(49:47):
Don was coolwhen I first joined, shoreline.
She was the she's whatever person.
Yeah. Now she's the.She runs that one over there in Madison.
Yeah.
You know, they're pretty good.
She, organized.
It was like a press sort of thing wherethere was, like, political leaders, like.
Okay.
And so it was actually really interestingto, like,
watch about what's going on and.

(50:09):
Like, yeah.
So that was cool and kind of sit in on.
Yeah.
Now she's got a cool history.
She's from New York, I guess she was.
She worked at some big like marketingfirm in New York for a while.
And then her and her husband relocated.
I can't rememberwhy they came to Connecticut,
but they relocated for some, some reason.
And, you know, she's atshe's killing it over at Madison.
So, yeah, she. Does a great job.

(50:29):
And she also appreciates,
like the arts and crafts she does picked up on really quickly.
Like I was able to talk about likethat was one thing that she,
when we do our, like, little speeches,she was like,
say a little bit more about yourselfor like one thing that you enjoy
and like something that's different,like outside of your normal, like 9 to 5.

(50:52):
So that was really not somethingyou see every day.
And so would you talk about jewelrymaking?
Yeah. Yeah.
What would I talk about? I don't know.
Going out to see music maybe.
What else do I do. All I do is work. Yeah.
Where is your favorite,like music venue in Connecticut?
The Duke Place.

(51:13):
Yeah.
I mean, well, okay,that's more like a club.
So if it's like a full on music venue,like a theater type place or anything.
So, I do like College Street Music Hall.
Yeah. If we're looking at bigger,if we're going to bigger theaters.
So when I was in school,I went to southern and it used Cosby.
It was called, was it the Palace Theater?

(51:34):
I think it used to be calledPalace Theater.
And then they closed down,
and then I moved away,and I came back like 20 years later
and they renamed, you know, College Streetmeans, am I going to go?
They didn't change anything.They like change the name.
It's the same the balcony still like.
Yeah, like ship bounceswhen people are dancing up there.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So know it's a great theater.
So I like that place.

(51:54):
Oh actually one of my favorite places is
What's it called. The.
It's the old tennisvenue down in New Haven.
It's the Yale is. No it's Yale.
Yeah. It's the.
Yeah. It's like near there.
It's called the
Music Summit in New Haven. Wow.
This is great.

(52:14):
Are going to be a lot of good informationin no.
Words or fail to.
Call the, New Haven Music Bowl or.
Oh, I'll have to put it ina, maybe I'll put in a description
or something like a link to it. But yeah.
So it's I saw I've only been there once.
I saw Billy Strings there. So it's,
I guess it's tennis, right?
I, I've never been to a tennis match,but the seats are like stadium seating,

(52:37):
but it's a lot. Sort of. It'snot as steep.
It's a little bit more shallowand there's a lot more room.
And and the music was great.
I mean the sound was amazing.It was so cool.
It was like in the middle of Covidand we're all like spread out.
And then I see these people are starting.
There's like ushers are talking to peopleand everybody's moving around.

(52:59):
I'm like, what is going on?
So they finally come to usand they're like,
yeah, hey,if you want to, you can like move forward.
So we all we're all scattered,we all move forward.
And I was just like,it was such a good show, Billy Strings.
If you ever get you can see Billy Strings.
It's amazing.
It's awesome. So that was cool.
So that's my. Favorite.I have to insert the.
Yeah, I'll have to getI have to say something.
Music Bowl in New Haven.

(53:20):
There's probablya lot of people know about it. It's yeah.
Yeah I like yeah.
Like comeI spit it out, you know, I'll, I'll,
I'll put in, I'll put itin the description.
Fun fact, though, I wouldn't be aliveif Toad's place in exist,
because that's where my parents nowwas, so.
That's cool.
Yeah. Toes, I forget about Toad's place.
I saw a lot of good shows there.

(53:42):
But they there.
Yeah.I don't know what they do over there now.
I've been there in forever.
They still do shows, but, yeah.
I've been there like a couple of years agofor movement.
It's another band, Heavy, like.
Okay.
I mean, they know I would saythey're like alternative.
Yeah.
Me, I just discovered,righteous continental.

(54:06):
They do like Texas blues.
Like, Stevie Ray Vaughan influenced offlittle Jimi Hendrix stuff.
That's.
That's why I saw them at at the juke,the place in, deep River.
So good.I mean, this kind of far, isn't it?
I don't know, half hour.
So it's not terrible. Yeah, it's right up.
I thought that was like.
Yeah, just.
It's Old Saybrook, and you, you takea left on route nine and it's it's right.

(54:29):
It's like right off the roadI forget nine.
It's like in the valley.Is that the valley?
Like Darby orange.
No, no, the other way.
Oh, it's. The other. Way. Yeah.
Oh nine. Yeah.
That's really true. It's like part. Of.
The valley. Am I wrong?
No, no, because the valley is. Yeah.
Naugatuck and Ansonia.
Ansonia like Durbin.

(54:49):
Yeah. Old Saybrook is up. We got.
Where are we now? We're Branford.
Right. So it goes. It goes.
Branford. Guilford. Madison.
Clinton. Westbrook. Old Saybrook.
So it's up by it's up.
It's up close to New London.It's on the way to New London.
I really should know. Yeah, you do now.
There you go.
Sorry.
I've been in Connecticut my whole life,and I just
there's just some townsthat, like, sound like they're really far.

(55:12):
Like.
Yeah, yeah.
Essex. Yeah. That's anywherein, like, Fairfield County.
I'm like, I can't even like, think.
Yeah, that's a whole different.
That's a whole different world down there.Yeah.
Did you ever wantto move out of Connecticut?
I would, I'm scared to, though.
Do you? Yeah.
I've been here my whole life, but,yeah, I had a plan and never happened.

(55:35):
Just so I'm still here.But I think about it.
But I'm here.I got my studio here, and my bad.
I'm like, I'm not.
Maybe something, but I the my plan nowis to just travel more like vacation.
More like go on like long, like leave for.
Yeah, like a month.
Where would you move to, though,if you could move anywhere?
I don't know, South like Florida.
Like out of the country.

(55:56):
South like Central America.
South.
It's the climateso nice down there. But I don't know.
I mean, that's
who knows.
I think it's. Possible, but who knows.
To like Virginia.
Yeah.
Maybe because I heard it's like, really?
Well, I've been there for a weddingand it was actually very beautiful.

(56:16):
They have like.
Wow, bars and all that. Good.
So I was yeah.
What was it'slike my first time in a while.
What was a great. Yeah.
They're like,it's like Cumberland Farms, right.
We have up here.It's like that's the Wawa. Yeah, yeah.
But like Cumberland to point outbecause they like, kind of make your food
like, I had like a breakfast burrito.

(56:39):
Where at a Walmart. Wawa.
They make it at Wawa I think.
So I ordered it and then I don't knowwhat happened after that.
I haven't been to one in forever.
Yeah, yeah.
Wawa. It's a great name.
It's a good name.
Well, I've never been on a plane. Though,so I don't travel.
Oh, really? Yeah.
I'm telling my kids, like,get your passport.

(56:59):
So, like, I'm not going anywhere,so it doesn't matter.
I just, like, get thembecause they last, like ten years.
Yeah.
And that way you have itbecause you never know.
Like something might happen. Yeah.
You already have an opportunityto go somewhere where you have to leave.
Yeah.
I think when you. Need to leave the.
Country. Yeah.
Yeah.
No, but no planes or planes are I.

(57:21):
Yeah.
I mean I've been I don't I'm not a
I like travelingbut I don't like the traveling part.
Yeah.
Like the airplaneI just, I could do without that whole TSA
and security and taking my shoes off and
getting patteddown every time I go through security,
for some reason, every time,
every time, it's.
Like a little like someonewho's, like, causing trouble.

(57:43):
Yeah, yeah.
So, yeah,I could do with all that. Yeah. Yeah.
I haven't even.
Traveled. But I would love to visit Japan.
Okay. Yeah.
It's like my one placethat I think I want to see
before I die, butthat's like a huge plane ride that's like.
That's really far.
Yeah.
I mean, but why Japan?

(58:05):
The food.
Okay. The culture. Okay. Sightseeing.
That's cool.
Yeah, yeah.
I'm a big sushi person.
And cherryblossoms, cherry blossom season.
I heard it's like a really good in Japan.
Yeah, really. Go see the cherry blossoms.
They're supposed to dothe cherry blossoms in New Haven

(58:28):
and Worcester Square or whateverit's supposed to be.
I think last weekend got rained outwhenever they canceled it this year,
so that's too bad.
I'm supposed to snow.
To it's awful snow.
Sorrow.
Weather tomorrow.
And that's what I heard tomorrow morning.
I don't know, that was like.Now that's awful.
Told me that today.

(58:49):
Yeah I can't I'mnot I'm done with that cold.
Yeah. No snow.
It is too late to snow. It happens.
But now like I'm like okay with that.
As long as the rest of April was like65, like it's supposed to be.
Yeah.
Not this 40 degree nonsense, I know. Yeah.
I honestly feel likeit's like half the time it's.

(59:09):
They say snow and it's just rain,so I don't believe anything anymore.
Yeah, I knowyou just got to wake up and figure it out.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So we'll say there's probably going to be
like if there is, it'sprobably like a wet rain.
If anything rains usually wet though.
Yeah.
Sometimes it's like fluffy in.

(59:31):
Rain or snow.
Well the snow.
Yeah.
If it's not like well sometimes it's like,oh I like.
You said wet rain.
Yeah I meant wet snow. Okay.
Please cut that out.
I mean, just being, Yeah,I got a little brain fart.
That's all right.
It's been a long day.
Yeah. It's okay. I'm sorry.

(59:53):
I don't have a lot of running around todo. Yeah.
What was your schedule today like?Where'd you go?
What was your route today?
This morning, I went to a job where we aredoing, like, odor mitigation.
So, raccoons got into,
a house and basically got inthrough the crawlspace

(01:00:15):
and pooped everywhere.
Oh, gross. Yeah.
Which, like, is very dangerous,by the way.
Raccoon poop.
It has, like, roundworm in it.
All. The time, which can kill you.
It's like a parasitethat will eat your brain.
Yeah, but how would you like.

(01:00:36):
How would it likeyou have to, like, ingested one.
Yeah.
So if you, it can come up likeif you're cleaning it and there's dust.
So like, say it's dirt, like ina crawlspace, like unfinished crawlspace.
And you inhale it, you can contract it.
So. Oh, wow.

(01:00:57):
So you got to wear, like,hazmat suits and whatnot.
Whole hazmat. Yeah, it's.
Gonna be a big job,but we scoped it out this.
Morning.
What else did I do today?
I did another docu sketch,
which is like a 360 camera.
Basically scoping from room to room.

(01:01:20):
The loss of a job.
So I did that on, water last job today.
This afternoon.
So. Yeah.
All right.
The raccoon poop, though.
It's good to know.
Yeah, definitely don't handle it yourself.
Is there any other.
I mean, all feces are bad,but that one's like rat poo.
Okay. Yeah. Rat poop is not a good one.

(01:01:43):
Very dangerous.
Yeah. That's like,
there's another name for it, I don't know.
Yeah, we don't have to.
But it's pretty bad.
So, like, any sort of, like,wildlife droppings.
Definitely like mice poop. Like.But that's just like.
I mean, you can't, you know,you want to wash your hands, but.
Yeah, you definitely it's.

(01:02:06):
But that's can't be like,it's not as bad as, like.
Raccoon, raccoons, bats.
Yeah.
Any wildlife really?
Any wildlife poop?
Any poop.
I think we're just going to go any any.
I think we just need to.
Seek a professionalor do your research before.
I think any poop is bad.

(01:02:27):
I don't handle it.
Yeah, yeah,I think we'll just stick to that one.
Yeah that's good.
Yeah. Anything else going on.
And then we'll go drinksome more wine or something.
Yeah.
So this weekendI have to pay some hail or

(01:02:47):
pay some hail bill some.
Hey, my mom volunteersfor this horse rescue in North Branford.
It's called all the King'sHorses and Gray organization.
They rescue horses.
Well, she's going to be doing this week.To get your mom on.
I know I should,or should get Mary to one that,

(01:03:07):
she runs, the rescue.
Okay. She would be great.That'd be cool to talk to.
Yeah. What's it called?
All the king's horse rescue.
That king's horses should. Reach out to.
Her. All the king's horse rescue.
You can. Yeah. You'll have to connect me.
Yeah, because they're horse.
That's a good name.
Because she, like, she goes out west.

(01:03:27):
Yeah. I'd love to talk. To King. And great.
Like, rescues, horses, wild mustangs.
And she rescueshorses from, like, slaughter.
Wow. And where do the horses end up at her.
Like, she rescues them from, like,slaughter house, right?

(01:03:48):
Sometimes. And then like.
But she come all the way back hereto Connecticut and they're in northward.
Okay.
So at her barn,
she basically rehabilitates themand then adopts them out
if they're like, okay, adoptable,if they're like.
Sort of people to people, like,pay her a fee

(01:04:09):
to get the horse or question like,how does she get I think.
She like just adopts ourI don't think she charges.
Them because it. Looks for like a loving.
That's really cool.
Yeah.
Like race horses to like end of liferace horses
because that's probably a big one.The horse is not going to make any money.
They just need to just get rid of it.
Yeah.
There's a racehorse now at the barnthat was abandoned.

(01:04:30):
She had some sort of dental issueand they stopped
using her basically because she wasn't
pretty enough for the,like, racehorse lifestyle,
which is really sadbecause it's abandoned and.
Like, what do you mean abandoned?They just like.
They just said,you are not good for us anymore.

(01:04:52):
And I, I don't know if it was like that.
She was sent to I don't know wherethey got her from, but they basically
she a lot of them are
like, like skin and bones.
Wow. She gets them. So that's crazy.
Abandoned a lot of casesor neglected, abused.

(01:05:14):
So she's a good person to reach out to.
That's very cool.That's good for her to be.
Doing this weekend.
Is baling some.
Hay. There's, like a semi truck of hay.
We bring up to the attic and stack it.
Yeah, it's going to be a process.That'll be good.
It's going to be not a good day tomorrowto do that.

(01:05:36):
I think it's Sunday.
Oh, Sunday to. Be clear.
I think it's going to be snow.
You know. No snow.
Yeah. It's going to be warmer on Tuesday.
Yeah. Anyway.
Well that's cool.
Be fun.
But I'll definitely connect to it. Yeah.
Connect me to because.
Otherwise, not much going on.
Yeah. I'mprobably making some art tomorrow.

(01:05:56):
Yeah.
Nice. All right.
Anything else going on in your life?
I mean, time?
No, no, I had I had a job tomorrowthat got postponed because of the weather,
so I'm doing that. So that's good.
So I'm going to hang outand find something to do.
Maybe I'll find a show or somethingto go to tomorrow night and do that.
But yeah, I'll probably come hereand do work

(01:06:16):
like I always do on the weekend,come in for a few hours and clean up
and get set for, some more podcast.
So we got going on next week.
Yeah, well, podcasts you have.
So, let's see, what do we have next week?
We have, well, we have,
Feni talks with friends,but that's up in West Hartford.
So that's, Eric Feeny.
He does, a nonprofit where

(01:06:39):
families that are suffering like tragedy,like a loss or something.
He just helps them financially.
Okay. So, you know, it's.
Yeah, it's a really good car to start.
He's a, thirdgrade teacher, and one of his students
father died years ago,and he wanted to do something.
So he just did, like a GoFundMe.
And then, like, the next year,another parent dies
who did the same thing,and he realized, you know,

(01:06:59):
you raised all this money on GoFundMe,but then when he went to cash out,
like they would take a piece of it,he's like, well, that's no good.
So then he kind of started just doing it.
And people donate.
He does, fundraisersand things like that.
And he's on episode 130.
I think we just recorded 133
or 130 hours Monday, something like thatanyway, or somewhere in there anyway.

(01:07:20):
So there's that one.
And then here we have, what's good with John and Joyce?
You can catch that show every Wednesdaymorning on all your podcast channels,
what's goes to Johnny Joyce.
And they talk aboutjust about what's good.
So it's a little bit spiritual.
It's a little it's very optimistic.
You know, how to sort of,
think about things just better.

(01:07:41):
So songs troubleand you just like have good,
better thoughts and they have guests onand things like that.
So that's a really good positive show.
Next weekwe also have Prideful Connections,
which is a podcast that helps, basicallyis kind of like an educational thing
for transgender peoplewho are trying to figure out, you know.
Navigate that navigate and world.

(01:08:03):
Exactly. It's exactly what it is.
So we did our first episode last week,and we have our second episode,
this week, really good people.
So there's two people, there's Tony andSarah that they usually have a guest on
and they talk about, whatever that gets involved in.
And yeah, so that's a really good program.
That's what that sign is overthere, obviously.

(01:08:24):
And then we have, Touchstone Talks,which I think she's recording.
Oh my God, she's recording ThursdayI think.
So they help people transitionout of owning a business.
So like there's a CEO or somebody owesa large but usually larger businesses.
Where do they sell it?Do they shut it down?
Do they merge so they help themwith that whole transition over the years.
So when they leave,they're they're set up.

(01:08:45):
And then there's this one.
Yeah.
Which is which is kind. Of a very busy week.
So it's a busy week. Yeah.I was talking to Steph.
I was like,I think it's pretty chill next week.
She's like no.
Yeah. So yeah. So it's busy. Next week.
So so where is this going to be streamingon where I can I see. My so this this.
All right.
So this show that we're on now is calledDave's Open Mic.

(01:09:07):
I used to be called behind the brand.
So you're going to see this on Spotify
and Will and all the other podcastchannels as well as YouTube.
Cool. So I think you have. Sorry.
No, it will be posted,for last Friday of this month.
I think Usman will post it.
Not 100% on that, but I'll send you out.

(01:09:28):
I'll get I'll send you out thereso you can share it out.
Yeah, yeah.
I'm still trying to figure outa new schedule because it's my show.
I sort of fit it in in betweeneverything else.
So it's been a little bit sporadic.
So I don't really have a schedule.
So I'm trying to figure out a schedule.
How many episodes do you have so far?
Well, under the new name,
I'm going to let you in on a little secretwhat I'm going to do.
Right.
So, I've done like 24 or 5 appssomewhere in there of behind the brand.

(01:09:53):
Yeah.
So I think the last five, 4
or 5, I'm going to incorporateinto the new branding of Dave's Open mic.
Okay.
So this
technically is episode one,but I think it's going to end up
being episode like five.
Okay.
So cool.
Yeah,we're going to cheat a little bit. Yeah.
But I can get involved. Yeah, yeah.
And that was very confusing to Corinne.Yeah.

(01:10:14):
Because no, you're a great cook.
About like
things that are so visual
that like, it's hard to like,
you know, describe it in words like, well,what I do.
Oh, it's hard to like.Yeah. And also, I hope I
wasn't moving around too.
No. You're perfect.
No it's good.
So yeah. No the mics move.So that's totally fine.

(01:10:35):
Yeah. No that's cool.
So thank you so much.
This was this was fun.I was looking forward to it for a while.
And I hope you had a good time,because I did. Yeah, I learned a lot.
I learned about raccoon poop,and I learned about learn about.
You can reuse sand for.
Yeah, mere molds and things like that.
Yeah. Cool.
All right.
For anyone that's trying to bea silversmith, it's definitely possible.

(01:10:56):
It's just it quite.
It can be pricey.
Yes. Yeah. Like, give them your,
contact info, Instagram and websitesand all that kind of stuff.
So my Instagram isLeo Moon Designs underscore
and then my website is LeoMoon designs.com.
Cool. All right.

(01:11:18):
Thank you very much.
This was fun.Thank you so much for having me.
You're welcome. See everybody.