Every Jewellery Metal Ranked (Some Are Terrible)

I don't know Mason Mignanelli from Adam, but he clearly knows more about working with metals for jewelry than I do.

As an aside, sources seem to say that jewelry (as my browser wants me to spell the word) and jewellery (as Mason spells it in his video title) are both correct, but that the shorter spelling is more prevalent in the US (where I am) and the longer is more prevalent in the UK (where I assume Mason is).

As a warning, the video does have a couple of spicy words at 1:30 (s*** - spoken), 1:40 (s*** - spoken), 5:55 (s*** - spoken), 6:30 (s*** - spoken), and 7:20 (kicka** - shown on screen).

tl;dr - no one metal is perfect. They all involve tradeoffs or workability/hardness, cost, and appearance. 

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Now that's just gorgeous.

I don't drink tea, so I have absolutely no need for one of these kettles...

...but I kinda want one.

They're so simple and so pretty.

The craft that goes into creating them is spectacular to watch, too.

Melting pill bottles into robots. (The Plastic Recycling Episode)

I don't know, man. 

I assume the TheCrafsMan isn't really a felt puppet with a bad soul patch and an oddly affected, slow-paced, Cajun accent.

Then again, in my brief research of TheCrafsMan I can't find anything to say that he isn't that puppet somehow magically brought to life like a golem.

His projects a decently involved, however, so unless you've been doing some injection molding already, you - like me - might not be ready to step right up to this level of crafsing.

What happens when you heat a plastic cup?

Shrinky dinks!

Well, it's the same science as shrinky dinks, anyway. 

Today we see Steve Mould heating up polystyrene cups (recycling code 6) and allowing them to shrink back toward their original, flat shape.

Fun times...

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Our students love the shrinky dinks. The success rate is pretty high (not 100% because of the curling and touching that the video maker above mentions), and it's a simple project. There are lots of fun creations that can be made (even entire books about the projects).

I've never tried to twist or bend the shrinky dink when it first comes out of the toaster oven, admittedly. Usually I'm trying to flatten it down as much as possible.

DIY Fashion ♥ Toothbrush Bracelets

How cute are those?

It took me a while to get the different between thermoplastic and thermoset polymers down. Then I realized it's nothing but word origins.

• thermoplastic...thermo = heat...plastic = change shape...so thermoplastics are things that, when heated, change shape...
• thermoset...thermo = heat...set = not changing shape...so thermosets are things that, when heated, don't change shape...

Clearly, whatever cheap, pretty, translucent polymer these toothbrushes are made of are thermoplastic.

Now I just need to find the absolute cheapest way to buy a few hundred of these for my classes.

Thanks, by the way, to Jen Donaldson for sending in today's project video.