This pondering occurred when I started noticing that if I am browsing the web during the day, I don’t tend to mind pages with a light background and dark text as much as I normally do at night. At night I tend to prefer dark backgrounds with lighter text colours, and I also seem to have a tendency to like these colour schemes in general. I also noticed that I tend to do most of my web browsing at night, which seems to indicate to me that the light has a major effect on my preference for darker colour schemes.

I’m interested in your opinions on this… What is your preference, and what do you believe drives it?

If I were one of the founding members I would have sat down with the other founding members and discussed with them what they would be willing to financially contribute each year as an on-going contribution. I would have stressed that even if we went with a co-op model for the way ahead, we would still need a significant amount of capital to develop any site we purchased into a viable sustainable business. I would point out that whilst we could start by contributing the bare minimum needed to get it going hoping that we quickly turn the site into a sustainable business, the reality could mean that we might not be able to get things going as quickly as planned. I would ask that we as founding members agree to continue to pay the agreed upon figure each time it is due, possibly suggesting breaking the payments into weekly, fortnightly or monthly payments rather than a lump sum each year.

I would suggest that we sat down and developed a business plan outlining the possible income streams taking into account who would be running them and doing research into the potential income they would earn as well as what they would realistically cost to get set up and where they would be located.

I would point out that if we chose an empty block of land then there would be significant amounts of capital that would need to be spent on infrastructure such as a work shed, power and equipment owned by the Group. I would suggest that the smart thing to do would be to purchase an existing working farm that could slowly be converted whilst still providing infrastructure and an income. I would point out that there could be the possibility of hiring a farm manager to continue the operation of the existing farm whilst the Group itself concentrates on the plans to convert the farm to a medieval site.

I would suggest that a co-op whilst being the ultimate in a fair and equal ownership model, means that everything needs to be approved by committee which may slow down development making it difficult to get to a sustainable state. I would suggest that whilst the Co-op model is probably the best for the people involved, there needs to be some very strict rules put in place to ensure people stay involved. Alternately a more business like model might be more appropriate.

There are a lot of things that have lead to putting Crossroads where it is today, and turning back time won’t fix any of them however time has shown us where the holes are. Personally I think there is still hope, however it will take the majority of members to realise they either need to start bailing, or get off the boat and lighten the load, and there only seems to be a few members still paying attention.

This is just my way of saying “I’m willing, but only if everyone else starts grabbing buckets and bailing too…”.

It is no secret that Crossroads has some major issues ahead. Amongst the medieval community there have been many rumours and stories and a lot of bad blood between members. It is easy to see that the medieval community has lost faith in Crossroads ability to provide everything that was discussed almost twenty years ago when the project started. There has been some bad decisions made and some forced that have lead the co-op into a lull in member participation. The real questions is, is this lull terminal? Personally I believe that unless there is a major increase in both member participation and member financial contributions then yes, I believe it is terminal, though I also believe it is possible to turn this terminal prognosis around however it would require the membership to actually get involved.

You know I here these voices of Crossroads Members in my head telling me “It’s all very well me having these opinions, but you are new and haven’t been around during all the hard times”… You know what… You are right, I’m not hung up on the past. I see a possible future for Crossroads… I see what it can be with support from all of it’s members both financially and personally. The fact is that whilst Crossroads is a Co-op, it also needs to be a business, it needs to make money to support itself. Both the members of the Board and the membership at large need to realise this so that the project can move ahead. Hiding behind the “Not for Profit” status will only prolong the slow rot that has already set in.

At the moment the only means the Co-op has of raising capital is through the Membership as there is not enough infrastructure in place to open as a profitable tourist attraction or camp-site, nor would there be enough business even if there where. Covering just the minimum expense of running of the Co-op is also a futile gesture as all that does is prolong the inevitable. If the membership want to actually see the project succeed they need to be willing to contribute not only to the day to day running, but to future development. Businesses need Capital to get started, and not just the capital to buy the property in the first place, but capital to be able to fund development as well as paying for the expertise that the membership cannot supply. I’m not a fan of the Co-op structure myself, as it implies that we will all contribute equally and the history of Crossroads has proven that for the project to get as far as it has, that just doesn’t happen. For a Co-op to work everyone needs to be contributing equally and this clearly isn’t happening with Crossroads.

1. Current project for Their Majesties.
2. 80 – 100 x Radburne War Event Tokens (Annual Commission).
3. 3 x Coronets for Their Excellencies of Mordenvale.
4. 50 x tokens for Kotek, Kingdom Chirurgeon (Also need to ship the first 30).
5. Coronet for Cortaine.
6. Finish 2009 Period Archery cup for Maddog and 2010 Cup.
7. Private Commission.
8. Owl Tokens for Owain.
9. Sun Tokens for Catherine.
10. Pewter Tablero set for Myself.
11. Further Experiments in Drinking Vessels.

Any further jobs or projects asked of me will need to fit in-line with this current list.  I am estimating that at my current participation rate it’s going to take me at least 12 months to get to the end of this list.  I will still consider bumping the list for commissioned event tokens as event tokens are the reason I got into this hobby and I’m a strong believer in events having commemorative tokens.

If you have previously commissioned a project from me that is not on this list then please contact me however I do believe that I have listed all currently commissioned projects.  There is however one group that I do owe 40 tokens to, however I am still awaiting their design, and that is not listed.

I’m finding the actual casting of these current tokens very frustrating.  I would really like to know from other casters out there what the failure rate on your casts are, cause at the moment I’m getting about 2/3rds failures.  I’m also not exceptionally happy with the quality of the other 1/3rd that I have been keeping and often just give up on a particular pour all together.

Is the mould meant to get so hot you can’t actually hold it with welders gloves?  Does preheating the mould actually make a real difference?  If so…  what Temp do you preheat to?  I have found that I tend to get the best results with a cold mould that has a big enough opening to allow a full pour without allowing pockets to form, though I have also found that it is very hard to get that to work when you are casting thin tokens as the pewter freezes before it can get into all the nooks and crannies.

Advice anyone?

1. Forget the experimentation and carve a back for the mould out of soapstone, basically going with an option that is known to work
2. Try again with a different medium and hope that the experiment will produce at least 25 usable tokens.  If I did go with this option I would consider using clay as the main alternative medium as I believe it would hold together better.

Another option is to get some hard wax for lost wax casting and use the current mould to make wax tokens that I then add to a huge wax tree and cast 30-40 tokens in one go.   I’m tempted to ask for help from a friend on this one, as I need to have the tokens made by Monday and I’m daunted by the task of having to hand carve the text.  Though the idea of doing lost wax casting is also interesting.

With this challenge ahead of me I thought it was a good time to experiment with a slightly cheating, slightly non period method of creating  the back half of the mould that I have been pondering on and off for the last few years.  The complete mould would be a composite of a soapstone hand carved front piece and a composite constructed rear mould made from etched copper and plaster.  This would allow me to easily create new rear pieces for any token with easily etched detailed writing or flat designs.  Whilst the back piece would appear to be a more modern process, on most tokens it would only be there to provide context to the token and therefore would mostly be hidden during wearing.

After discovering a blog post several months ago about how to use a laser printer to transfer toner to a piece of copper to use as etch resist I was armed with all of the necessary skills to create my experiment, and when this job turned up with a rather short timeline I everything fell into place.  Unfortunately as these tokens are to be presented I will not provide photo’s just yet, however I will go into a few more of the details of creating the mould.

After carving the front face of the token into a rather nice piece of soapstone, I then drilled three locating nipples around the carved mould so that the back mould can be located each time.  I then proceeded to construct the back mould.  The back mould will consist of a copper plate that is etched suspended in the correct location by a plaster block.  After etching the copper plate with the lettering on it I soldered some anchor tabs into the back of it so that it would be held firm to the plaster once it set.  I then mounted the copper plate in the correct position on the soapstone front face mould using bluetak, this allowed me to position it correctly and have it sit the correct distance from the face of the mould.  I then constructed a mould around the soapstone so that I could pour in wet plaster.  Once the plaster had set I removed the mould and the plaster from the soapstone and let the plaster sit for a few days drying.  Plaster is very good at retaining water, so it’s best to either leave it for at least another 24 hours after the first 24 hours it takes for the plaster to set, or artificially dry the mould in an oven on very low for 3-6 hours.

In a few weeks time I shall update you on how successful the process is and how well the plaster and copper mould works, for now I can only tell you that initial testing is promising and that future un-hurried testing may produce much better results.

“Right Click” and “Save As” the following links.

http://syridian.id.au/freezer/Politarchopolis_Shield.svg
http://syridian.id.au/freezer/Politarchopolis_Device.svg
http://syridian.id.au/freezer/Politarchopolis_Filled_Griffin.svg

Enjoy using them.

With money comes the technology to be able to keep in touch without actually you know…  having to keep in touch.  This lends us the false feeling that we are being social, yet more and more of us are using this as a means to retreat from society.  At the same time it gives others the means to sell more stuff we don’t need.  It’s this stuff that makes companies money, and they need to sell it to you to make their shareholders happy.  These shareholders are people that have done nothing but provide money to a company so that they can in turn make money.  It takes money to make money, and more and more of the worlds money is flowing up the money chain, whilst more and more people fall out the bottom.  These people who fall out the bottom are useless to the cycle as they cannot contribute to the materialistic, stuff generating world we currently live in.

Whilst money itself isn’t the cause of the problem, I believe the fact that more and more laws and law precedents are applied each year that restrict everything down to a financial base is.  Money is becoming the only legal solution to any issue, if you don’t have money, you don’t have a chance in today’s society.  Not only is money becoming the only way to deal with society, it’s become more and more an acceptable means of righting ones wrongs.  This leads to the fact that businesses these days are even weighing up their risks with potential profits and sometimes choosing to continue with the risk rather than putting more money into development.  More laws directing monetary settlements, and monetary settlements themselves seeming to be the only way to a satisfactory end, meaning that there is even more of a need for money.

The ever increasing need to have money to make money means that the majority of society are only ever going to be struggling to survive whilst those with money will continue to succeed slowly gathering up all of the worlds resources until there are only a few large companies controlling all of us.  No matter how much Governments try and legislate against it, today’s society is in a slow spiralling decline to an industrial society where we are all just numbers, and a small group of people will be controlling every aspect of our lives.  I challenge those of you with the means of researching the rise of the mega-companies to chart it’s inevitable end.  The only hope I have for society is that the end of the Mayan Calendar in 2012 brings with it a disaster of such proportions that society is given a chance to start again.

Am I a nutter to believe this?  Possibly.  All I know is that I am extremely unhappy in today’s society and that I do hope for some major change that will stop society continuing slowly on this seemingly harmless yet oh so dangerous course.

The truth is there are a large number of uses for Facebook, and we all use various aspects of it each day.  Sometimes we use it to keep our friends informed of what we are up to, sometimes it’s used for advertising and sometimes it’s used to invite friends closer, in an effort to get people socialising more.  It all really comes down to how you yourself use it.  Yes, it is just a tool, but a tool that has so many uses that sometimes it can harm friendships as well as help them.

For me, facebook seems to enable me to become more of a hermit, more of someone who doesn’t get out, and doesn’t feel the need to get out as I seem to have all the friends I need on fthere.  But then, over the years the Internet has done that for me in various other technologies as well, starting with IRC which was the initial Internet addiction.  Yes, I have a problem but it’s one that I seem unable to beat as society keeps leading me back to it.  Sure, ultimately it’s me who has the final say in the end and me who keeps listening, knowing I have a problem but still returning…