For those not familiar with the process, I'll briefly explain. Any quarter from 1964 and before is all silver and is not made up of various metals as in today's quarters. This is common knowledge and why you rarely find older quarters in circulation. To make the ring, you get a spoon and tap the sides of the ring until it forms into a ring shape. Lastly, you drill out the middle and dremel it smooth.
I must have thought these were more malleable that they are. Somehow when reading the blog, I glazed over the part where it took the guy a year to form the ring. Now I understand why. Last night I tapped steadily while watching all of This Island Earth from 1954. A stellar movie with really advance special effects for the time. Running time for This Island Earth 88 minutes. At approximately five taps per second for nearly an hour and a half, this is how far I have come.
The Ring as of 6/16/09
You can clearly see that I pounded my way through the ridges that surround the ring. The outer lip is now forming. I don't believe this will take a year, but it won't go fast.
Very nice, but you forgot the cardinal rule of blogging. When referring to my blog, you must hyperlink it.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, it's your blog, do as you please.
I'm excited to see that you're taking on the quarter project-- you must let me know how it turns out.
I also love Psycho-- I always liked Anthony Perkins. Something about his weirdness and awkward nature appealed to me.
You have now been linked. I am not schooled in the etiquette of blogging as you are. I have been enlightened by your presence once again.
ReplyDeleteI've been wanting to cue up all of Perkins' work in my Netflix, but haven't yet. I'm still working my way through 70s Italian horror. I'm going to go through all the Hitchcock films again next.
Hey man--fancy photos. Let's hope that ring comes together soon for you. The ones I have seen made in that way ended up with the date of the coin on the inside of the band and that made them even cooler.
ReplyDeleteAs to movies, I'm sure you're familiar with the 1966 Frankenheimer classic "Grand Prix" (starring James Garner). If you haven't seen it, you should put it at the top of your list. Not only is a great story, it has some absolutely stunning cinemaphotography of actual in-car shots and stuff that they still have never repeated or attempted. There are some seriously spectacular scenes in the movie (not to mention the heavy use of actual grand prix stars of the day). The production team entered two formula cars in the real Formula One series for two seasons just to get the footage and Garner did all of his own driving, etc.
As you can see, I'm a big fan and I try to watch this movie once at least every year. It has everything great about great movies.
I forgot to add that the special features DVD is also great in that it goes behind the scenes both from the date of production, as well as modern day interviews with the cast, etc. It is a great afternoon of great entertainment to watch.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I saw that AGES ago. I put it at the top of my queue to revisit it. Frankenheimer rules. Seconds is a must see as well.
ReplyDeletehttp://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=2539741
ReplyDeleteHave you seen this before? I'm a loser and just saw it, but wow what a cool idea. Check it out if you haven't seen it.