The Meet was held on November 12, in the Spirit Iron Shop run by Tim and Rachel Miller. Tim was the first demonstrator. He started his demo by forging a freeform copper bowl. He uses copper buss bar pieces he gets from the scrap yard for the stock.
| Starting in the center of the piece he uses the power hammer to work out from the center of the piece. This gives a variation of the edge thicknesses as the piece develops. He has a clamp-on die holder to hold his drawing die for the hammer. |
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Using a large heavy hammer he works the center into a sinking ring, which he follows by using a smooth faced hammer over a stake. He feels that by using a heavy hammer the hammer is doing most of the work. He then works the edges over a sinusoidal stake to give them the curves he desires.
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Tim uses muriatic acid dip as a cleaner for the bowl after working it. It is a weak solution with a small piece of iron bar in it which helps to accelerate the cleaning action. He also uses hot shearing with a lever shear to cut the copper bars.
Tip: When upsetting, straighten it when it bends or you will just continue bending it.
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| Fullered in from edges |
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Different size fullers
and anvil horn |
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| Draw out edges |
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Tips;
-Quench copper to anneal
-Hammering refines the grain making it smaller and tougher, causing to become work hardened
-Heating copper and then quenching it forms large softer crystals.
-Re-anneal as the piece work hardens
Cutter for
bronze nails |
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Tim then showed a project he has been working on using forged silicon bronze nails
Recommended book by Tim;
Form Emphasis for Metalsmiths
The next demo was by Tom Ryan, Tom gave the next demonstration, starting with showing shop drawings and describing how they are presented to clients and this led into discussing other business practices.
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He then described a basic gate layout for a garden gate.
The layout was traditional and simple.
He demonstrated how the top strap and bearing section on the bar are formed.
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Swadge to dish strap so
it flattens when bent |
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Spring swadge to round
stile for the top journal
and bottom pivot
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Tool to keep bottom
strap in shape for the
top journal |
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Worked into an swadge
to even out journal strap |
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| Tom then showed how he was working out the test pieces for an up coming job by doing them there (Without a previous dry run) |
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Drawing |
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Tool to
make
center
point |
Rachel Miller was the next demonstrator.
Tims partner and sister Rachel showed photographs of several pieces and had some on display that had been made recently using large forged leaves. She then demonstrated the forging of the leaves |
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Her steps were to ;
Chisel veins
Define veins over swadge |
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Work from the back to
bring out the front |
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| Redefine the leaves |
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| Planish over a ball stake.
Many thanks to Tim, Rachel and Tom for an excellent meet and great demonstrations .
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