The fold formed bead

Here is the final result of all that hammering and annealing:

I bent it and stretched it out to the sides to form this bead, of sorts. I can see what I'd do differently next time: I forgot to planish it - hammer out the cross pein hammer marks with my nice smooth planishing hammer. That would have cleaned up all the texture you can see. But, who knows, maybe that was intentional! I'd also use a wider hammer right from the start, so I think it would go a lot faster. I ordered one yesterday from www.contenti.com, whose prices I find quite good and delivery remarkably fast, especially considering it's coming cross-border from the US. Anyway, this was definitely an interesting experiment. On to the next...