Decorative Arts

On Tuesday, I finished the Crucible's ornamental techniques class.

Overall, a good class.  The instructor was great and the projects were interesting.  As always, trying to get through everything was a challenge. 

The main project was creating a sample fence piece using mortise and tenon.  We made the top and bottom, and the rail pieces, created the mortises and then put different twists on them, then riveted them together.

In progress top/bottom pieces.

In progress mortise.

Final piece

After that, he showed us how to make leafs and dragon heads.  I didn't have time to finish a leaf, but will try the technique again.  My first dragon head came out pretty good, but I'd like to make the next one a little cleaner.

Sculpture-A-Go-Go

Last week I finished the Introduction to Welded Sculpture class at The Crucible.

This welding class was very different from the blacksmithing classes I've taken.  In those classes, each class starts out with a demo of a project or part of a project, and then the students work on duplicating that piece.  In the welding class, the first class started off with the instructor showing us how to do basic welds using the arc welding tools, and how to do torch cutting.  After that, we were on our own to come up with projects to work on, and he was available to answer questions or help us out where needed.

Below are the things I worked on, mostly projects to try different techniques or see what was possible.

My main project.  Started out just as a stick man, and then I found the gear to add as a head, and cut the wings out using the torch.















The second project I tried.  Supposed to be a turtle.













 Playing around with heavier materials, kind of an airplane shape.

Working with thinner materials, which is quite hard because they melt through if you use too much heat, too much current, etc.  I welded a bunch of plates to form a hoop and then cut and welded a bottom.







Just some misc pieces stuck together.

Working with thin pieces again, making a kind of walknot symbol.

My most delicate weld.  Originally it was supposed to be the trifoil radiation symbol, but it was impossible to do without welding it to the plate below them.  Then I found I could bend them up, making this neat shape.

First Intro to Welded Sculpture Class

Last night was the first of five evenings on welded sculpture at the Crucible.  The class looks good so far - very laid back, friendly teacher, and lots of time to experiment and try different techniques and work on a project.

It looks like the project will be more free form than the blacksmithing classes - we're going to have to come up with our own ideas - which has pluses and minuses.

The class started off with a review of the safety stuff, and a quick tour of the Crucible building.  Then it got down to a few demos of arc welding and torch cutting.  After that, we got to practice bead running (and the all important learning to scratch light the stick!) and then to connect a few pieces of random scrap with tack welds.

Project, Day Five

Two things done today.

First, I continued the back bend of the first test piece.  A little more success in seeing how it could work.  The results don't look good, but I got the feel of it and think I can do a more controlled bend on future pieces.

Second, I played around with using a scrolling jig, a tool to make the bends more repeatable.  This worked out well, with a few problems I've got to solve.  Getting a first bend seems very difficult.  I was doing the clamping by hand, with a pair of large pliers, and it was very difficult to hold the piece tight enough to turn it and make the initial bends.  Next time I try it, I will try a few different things or move to a more fixed clamp.

You can compare the hand curved piece (on the left) with the one made with the scrolling jig (on the right).  You can see that the initial curve on the right piece is a little messed up, but the curves are very smooth after that.  You can also see the results of the back bend on the hand piece.

Project, Day Four

A quick session after work.  Most of this session was spent on completing an earlier project, the candle holder from the continuing techniques class.  I had to close the bands around it using the torch, rather than the forge, to heat the metal.

I got it done, but with some issues.  One of the more difficult parts of this part of the project is getting the four scrolls at the right height versus the core, with clamps attached to hold them together while you close the bands.  I finally had it adjusted about right, then went to work with the torch, but working with the torch and the big clamp must have shifted my scrolls as two of them are badly out of place and the whole thing is quite wobbly.  As usual, my downfall is lack of patience.  I should have taken the time to checked and adjusted as I worked with the torch.

On the other project, I decided to clip off the end of my test piece, since it is coming in shorter than I expected.  After that I did a little bending of the end, but it wasn't working well.  I'm rethinking my approach to that end and will give it a try the next time I'm at the forge, probably next week.

Project, Day Three

Continuing to work on my test piece.  Today didn't go quite as well as the earlier sessions.  The early parts of the curve were easier, but today I ended up closing the curve a little too much.  Also, it is much harder to control the piece during the later parts of the bending.  Also, I'm using too many heats and causing too much scale on the piece.

I've gotten to the point where the bend changes direction and I have to figure out they best way to handle the piece for this part of the work.

Here is a picture of where I am with the test piece now - it was much nicer looking last time:

Project, Day Two

Second session working on this project.  Chris and Cliff were already working at the forges when I got there, so I didn't have to start off.  Really nice guys - they gave me a few tips on working with the longer pieces I' using, as well as a tip on a cheaper place to get metal.

For reference, here are a piece before doing any work on it.  I'm working with 40" pieces of cold rolled 1018 steel.  I meant to get hot rolled, but missed slightly.

Here is a piece in the forge:

And here is a partially done piece, next to an original.  This is the first of my test pieces, where I try to learn how to get the larger curves I'm targeting.  So far the curve on this one is excellent, but I'm using too many heats and scaling the piece badly.

Project Start

After signing up for the Crucible's Create program last week, and getting checked out, I didn't have time to make it over during the week.  Today was the first day I had a chance, and I took advantage of it to get in an hour or two of work.


Here is the space I'm working in.

Here are my starting materials - 9 40" pieces of 1018 cold rolled steel.  I actually wanted hot rolled, but the guy there thought 1018 only came in cold rolled. 

And here is one of the pieces in the forge.  This is actually an old piece of metal I had from a previous class.  I'm using it to warm up before working on the actual pieces.  The end you see is the main working end - you can see the start of the curl I'm working on.  The other end is in the forge so that I can bend it and make it easier to hold while working on the curl.

Create

Just got back from the Crucible.  I signed up their Create program a few days ago, and I had to go in to get checked out in so that I can use the blacksmithing area unsupervised.  Passed the test just fine.  Peter, the guy who runs the program and checked me out, seems like a nice guy and gave me some additional useful info about using the propane/oxy torch.  Hope to find time today or tomorrow to go in and do some actual work.

Continuing techniques in Blacksmithing

A few months after the introduction course, I took the continuing techniques class at the Crucible. 

This class started out a lot slower than the first.  Most of the first class was a discussion of how heating and cooling effects the metal, and was something that I had wanted to get out of the first class. 

After that, we moved on to making a cold center punch.  The basic shape is easy - though it took me a while to get it right since it involved backing off on the amount of force in order to be more precise - just turning a square piece of metal into an octagonal one and then tapering and rounding the end. Then the piece has to be heated to the critical temperature and cooled down very slowly.  In the next session, we were shown how to use the grinders in order to clean up the pieces and make the point/edges better.  Then the piece had to be heated to critical temperature again, the tip cooled quickly in oil and then tempered to the right hardness.  Later in the classes, I had the chance to repeat the basic flow for a cold chisel.

The next part of the class was a candlestick holder.  The bulk of the work here was on making matching pieces of scrollwork.  We were given one template, and instruction on how to curl a straight piece to try to match it.  This turns out to be very finicky and tricky work, easy to mess up and hard to correct well.  The other parts, the center piece, bands and catch plate were fairly simple.  The last steps involve using a torch to just heat up the bands and driving them closed around the scrolls/center piece.  As you can see below, I ran out of time and didn't quite get finished.  When I get a chance, I'll probably finish this piece off.

Once again, it was a very good class.  The smaller class size gave a little more chance for one on one feedback from the instructor and TA.  Also, the addition of some of the theory behind the metal working was very good, even though it cut into the forge time a little too much.  Being shown the ability to make your own tools is an added nice feature of blacksmithing.  And the scrollwork, while very difficult and frustrating, inspired me to come up with my own project, which I'll be posting about as it progresses.

Introduction to Blacksmithing

Earlier in the year, I did the introduction to blacksmithing class at the Crucible.  Previously, I'd taken a welding overview course there, but this was a more focused, and detailed course.

It was project based - over the five week course, we made a hook, knife, spoon and fork.  I didn't quite get done the fork, so only the other three are shown below.

Overall, the class was really good.  The art of "heating up metal and then hitting it with a hammer" is interesting to learn, and to try on actual projects. The project based nature of the class has good and bad points.  The good part is that it gives you a completed piece to look at at the end of each class. The bad part was that it makes a lot of the learning implicit, i.e. you have to think about what you are doing and try to draw the lessons, rather than having them pointed out to you.  This was made a little worse by the fact that the teachers weren't very focused on giving feedback.  They demonstrated the project, and then were available if you had specific questions.  I think it would have been better if they spent more time checking up on each student in a more rigorous fashion.

I'm going to do the next level class, which is a supposed to be a little less project oriented and have more theoretical information.

Beginnings

The purpose of this blog is to document my new interest in blacksmithing, as well as any interesting related links.

I'm going to copy over stuff I posted on my main blog that is relevant.