Allure

“Beaten, cut, textured and riveted by hand. Formed in a hand made wooden doming block.Painted then cured in the sun, specially rubbed to remove some of the color to give it that deconstructed worn artifact look.”

History of Aluminum:
Using aluminum for its properties in compounds started around 5300 BC. Ancient Greeks and Romans used aluminum salts as dyeing mordants and as astringents for dressing wounds; alum is still used as a styptic. It is thought potters in ancient Persia made their strongest cooking vessels from clay that consisted largely of aluminum silicates. Aluminum compounds are also thought to have been used by the Egyptians and Babylonians.

In 1808 Humphrey Davy, an Englishman tried unsuccessfully to extract aluminum through electrolysis – though he gave the metal its current name.

In 1854 a French chemist Saint-claire Deville developed a more efficient method to extract the metal. Emperor Napoleon 111 at whose table the most honorary guests were served food on aluminum tableware dreamed of supplying his army with cutlasses made of this light metal – however it was still too expensive to produce and hence only used in jewellery and luxury articles at that time.

At the end of the 19th century a cheaper method to produce aluminum was discovered. Charles Hall, an American student and Paul Herould, a French engineer developed it simultaneously although independently of each other. Karl Joseph Bayer an Austrian engineer developed an even cheaper process and the Bayer, Hall, Heroult processes are still applied to modern aluminum smelting.
With commercial smelting, the price of aluminum dropping, and products from this metal could become a reality. Properties that made and make it so popular for many applications are its light weight, odorless, good reflective properties, recyclable, corrosive resistant, non toxic – suitable for food preparation and storage, high strength to weight ratio and good ductility.

Properties:
Aluminum is remarkable for the metal’s low density and for its ability to resist corrosion. Structural components made from aluminum and its alloys are vital to the aerospace industry and are important in other areas of transportation and structural materials. Theoretically it is 100% recyclable without any loss of its natural qualities

Recycling involves melting the scrap, a process that requires only 5% of the energy used to produce aluminum from ore. In Europe aluminum experiences high rates of recycling, ranging from 42% of beverage cans, 85% of construction materials and 95% of transport vehicles.

Despite its natural abundance, aluminum has no known function in biology. It is remarkably nontoxic. The extremely low acute toxicity notwithstanding, the health effects of aluminum are of interest in view of the widespread occurrence of the element in the environment and in commerce.