Purse Frame

With my class on learning how to do soapstone/pewter casting, I see the feasibility of doing a purse frame from pewter other than the size. I'm going to try to do a bit more research on whether or not purse frames from period were actually made of pewter or not. I've found bronze and brass at times, but I don't know that I've seen pewter. Go figure, more research.

Portable Antiques Scheme shows this purse frame that is similar to the one I'm wanting to reproduce, but it lists it as a copper alloy. Pewter, (from what I've gathered thus far) tho it has copper in it for hardening, is not considered a copper alloy. It's mostly (about 85-99%) tin with only a little copper. I obviously could be wrong, it's not really my area of expertise. There's a class on bronze casting (which is a copper alloy) at Vertigo this weekend that I was considering taking.



The general theme is that they were cast copper alloys. Copper Alloys are generally copper, brass and bronze. Looks like I either find someone who already makes them or learn how to cast a copper alloy purse frame. Fun fun fun!