I wore this necklace to the monthly music potluck. It got several comments, one of which led to a discussion about somebody's gold ring. It was a nice design and her grandmother had made it, in her words, 'by some lost method."
When I suggested that it was lost wax casting, my friend was delighted to find somebody who knew what she was talking about. I explained that the method wasn't lost. The wax was.
I've heard this misconception before, where the story teller even extrapolated the misunderstood info to explain that the artist was reviving some ancient, lost casting method.
In lost wax casting, a model of the piece is made in wax. It's attached to wax wires and a wax stand, then placed in a mold. The wax wires reach the surface of the mold. The mold is filled with a type of plaster. Then the wax is burned out in a kiln, leaving a hole in the shape of the art piece with little tunnels leading to it from the surface. The mold gets filled with molten metal. The plaster is washed off, the little passages leading from the top (sprues) are cut off, the piece is cleaned and polished and voila, you have a ring. Or whatever.
Misconception number 2 is "dressing on the side." I have often seen articles on eating well or surviving travel without gaining tons of weight. One of the typical suggestions is to order salad dressing one the side.
Bad advice.
I make all kinds of salads at my job. Although fine dining generally gives you a lot of room around the food, the plate is still not big enough to toss a salad without making a mess, and you only have a fork to do it. So what happens is that the dressing-on-the-side diners put some dressing on the top which can't get to the bottom. They eat it, then add more as they eat. There is no way to lightly dress a salad on a full plate, so they end up with more dressing than if they let me toss it in the first place.
The person in the kitchen uses a large bowl and tongs. If you'd like a salad dressed lightly, order it that way.
Spring is here. Yay!
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