Recently, I've been taking my second casting class, and have these forms that are very pod-like. Especially in the sense of having crevices and holes that investment is very hard to get out of. I brought these castings home, and followed Beth Cyr's suggestion of using vinegar to get rid of the investment. I soaked them overnight in a mixture of rice vinegar and apple cider vinegar (we don't have plain at the moment).

After the soaking, I carefully took a toothbrush to them (over the vinegar container) and brushed as much of the investment off as possible. However, I came across a problem. How could I get the investment out of those holes?! I looked around the kitchen and saw one of our water bottle brushes! It fit perfectly into the crevices and I was able to get the investment out wonderfully.


If you are in need of such a tool, I suggest heading to your local store's baby/baby food section and looking for a bottle brush. Some stores sell bottle brushes for water bottles and they come with a smaller one for the lid. Good luck!

When soldering, there are many aspects to consider. The metal being used, shape and weight of the piece, the join that is to be soldered, what type of solder, what type of torch, etc. It gets easier the longer you're in practice. Problems don't take as long to solve.

The other day, I was getting ready to solder all the jump rings onto my charms for the Etsy Metal Charm Swap II, and I realized that I might have to do some tricky soldering, as these pieces wouldn't just sit nicely on my soldering block. I also didn't want to solder 22 charms one at a time. So I thought..."how can I get the jump rings to sit flat on the block?"...and remembered the lovely thing that is in my spinning soldering station--pumice! Pumice, that wonderful material that pieces can be pushed into, buried in, propped up on, or stabilized with.


This was the result...wedge the shapes into the pumice, as close to the soldering block as possible so the jump ring sat flat on the block. I was able to solder all 22 pieces in 2 groups, and only had to re-solder two that the jump rings deformed on. Not too shabby :)