Die forming, attempt 1, review.

Well my first die forms came out OK. I wouldn't write home to mom about the form itself but my goal was to learn the basics well and that I think I achieved. I blew out most of my first set of pressings and after some research I learned that I wasn't annealing properly. I was afraid of pushing the metal to far with heat, in reality I wasn't pushing enough and I was causing more blow outs. I ran out of 24 gauge metal because of my early mistakes and in the rush to finish the project I had to switch to 20 gauge. The funny part about that is that I found the 20 gauge easier to work with and I could push it deeper than the 24. Again fear of the 20 gauge metal kept me from it, and then in the end it worked better!! In rushing to get done I pressed too many front sides and not enough back sides so I wound up one form short of where I wanted to be. Being sick for four days threw a monkey wrench in my schedule so I focused on the quality of the forms I had rather than pushing for one more and leaving my finishing completely sloppy. In the deconstruct of the form I think I did keep my cuts conservative and predictable. I did so intentionally in the interest of lack of time, If I reached out to far and completely screwed something up I did not have time to go back and start a new form and fix it. I'm ok with where I wound up. The final forms were simple and clean. I think I gained alot of knowledge and skill. I think (hope) I am done with any illnesses for the semester. I am ready for the next project to take these new skills even farther, I've got all sorts of ideas swimming around my head.