Christmas Project - Day 5ish

As expected Christmas has got in the way of me getting into the workshop to work on the project. However, this evening, I managed to finally get off the sofa and away from the Xmas leftovers and get a bit of 'smithing' done.

I've now attached the base of the piece. This is achieved by filing the wall section flat so that when it sits on a sheet of silver, there are no gaps. With the wall section sitting on the silver sheet, I apply the flux and then place small pallions around the base. Then its soldering. The size of the piece now means that I need to apply a lot of heat in order to get all of the silver up to temperature and at the same time try not to overheat it...I've melted a lot of silver this way...

This last picture shows the base soldered in place. Next step is to cut off the excess and file down.

Christmas Project - Day 4

Having started to look at the tendrils, I was finding it a bit difficult to visualise the effect on the flat.
As, I'm a bit impatient, I therefore decided to form the body of the piece, joining both sides together to form the section of the cone.
Forming the cone shape roughly, I concentrated on getting the edges closely aligned so I could solder them.
In the following picture, you can see the piece ready for soldering, with the flux applied and the pallions of solder already put in place.
After soldering, I sanded to surface to remove any signs of the join.

Christmas Project - Day 3

Bit of a slow day today I'm afraid, so not much progress made. I'm blaming the awful weather and assorted Christmas related chores for preventing me from getting into the workshop.

I've now managed to get all of the holes cut out and have started the equally fiddly task of fitting the copper tendrils.

I start by hammering copper wire to flatten it out. This gives me something more organic looking (well it does to me).

I then start trial fitting the strand into the main body. I bend the wire in order for it to lie as flat as possible against the silver surface.

The overall effect is to try and get the piece to look as if the copper elements have grown out from the body and are snaking around the parts which have been 'eaten' away.

Christmas Project - Day 2

I spent yesterday, working on the main body of the project. I'm still in two minds at to what it will eventually become. I know the overall shape, but I'm not sure yet if I will make it a box, or something a bit simpler.

Anyway...

Step 1 was to create the fustrum template;

Using the projection I produced yesterday, I cut out a card version of the fustrum, both as a template for marking out the silver and a quick way of confirming that the shape is right.

I want to incorporate an organic feel to the piece and plan to integrate some tendrils 'growing' out of and curling around the body of the piece. So the first stage is to draw out the organic pattern;

 

I adapted one of my early organo patterns which I used for the Organo Box 1 last year and translated to the body of the piece. The photo shows the silver after I sketched out the pattern and then drilled locating holes to allow me to cut out each section.

 It's a bit laborious, for each hole, you have to thread the saw blade in and then cut round the outline of the hole, before releasing the blade and repeating the process. The photograph above shows where I got to in cutting out all of the holes when I decided to call it a day... I'll finish off the holes tomorrow.

Christmas Project - Day 1

With the Christmas Holidays now either approaching or upon us, I thought I might spend the vacation doing a silver-smithing project.
I'm hoping to post regular progress photos so that you can follow along with what I'm doing...assuming of course that I can maintain focus with all of the Christmas revels going on around me...

Here is phase 1 - I'm laying out a template to allow me to cut out the silver I need for the main body of the piece.

The body of the piece is part of a cone. To layout the surface on the flat sheet of silver, requires the frustrum of a cone to be calculated. The following diagram shows the frustrum shaded. It's projected from the cone as shown.

First Post

This Blog is intended as a little window on my attempts to learn metalsmithing. Why the secrecy, well, I'm rather shy and would prefer to let this be about the work rather than me.

So, where to start? I have a very sedentary job, so recently, I decided to take up some out of work activities to stretch me in ways not achieved in the office. Metalsmithing was the first, I'll spare you the rest, but if I blog about those, I'll post links...

Ok, let's jump right in. I'm intrigued by boxes, the more complex the better, particular if they've got hidden features. For my first attempt, I started rather simply.

I call this Organobox because I thought that the copper strips which wind across the lid looked a bit organic.

This is the finished box;

The front of the box is cut from a flat plate. The shape of the holes is intended to look organic, I was trying to make it look like veins or tendrils. The photos below show the box just after the front sheet had been soldered onto the base.



The base was soldered onto the front face, after carefluly placing it to ensure the holes were not overlapping the edge.

The lid was formed by cutting, carefully around the side of the box separating the lid from the base. In this way the two parts are properly aligned after the hinge is added.

The picture on the right shows the three main elements of the box with the lid on the left, base on the right and the inlay layer which fits into the lid element to provide some depth and continue the organic theme.

The inlay layer was created by using repouse technique to create the veins and voids and provide a three dimensional depth to the box lid. As a final touch, a copper tendril was made from wire flattened with a hammer and soldered into place.