Now we are on to the fun part. There is something very old school about shaping metal with a hammer. My great, great grandfather was a blacksmith. In my imagination I can see him in his workshop, leather apron on, covered in black from the coal fire, hot forging a big piece of steel into a sword for a nobleman... His reality was much less glamourous I'm sure, he probably made tools and horseshoes for local farmers as his main trade, I wonder if he ever made a sword?...
Ahem, back to the business at hand. Precious metal is cold forged. At the end of the last post I annealed the disc and relaxed the molecules, making the metal nice and soft to work with. I am using a vise to hold a ball punch. The ball punch supports the metal disc as I hammer on it and helps to bend the metal into a soft curve. I start on the outside and work my way towards the center of the disc hammering clockwise in a circle.
Being careful not to hammer my thumb, I slowly work my way toward the center.
Getting closer...
The disc is starting to take on a nice soft domed look, I will need to do a second round of hammering to give it the hight that I need.
The last step is called upsetting the edge, this thickens the metal at the edge of the piece and helps prevent cracking.
The metal is now work hardened. The metal structure is compressed and stiff, and any further manipulation would result in cracking. So we anneal again to soften it up and get the metal ready for the next round of hammering...
Next week we complete the dome and put on the texture!
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment