metalsmithing-msg

metalworking-msg – 10/14/06

Various bits of metalworking info. Gauge thicknesses, inlays.

************************************************************************

NOTICE -

This file is a collection of various messages having a common theme that I have collected from my reading of the various computer networks. Some messages date back to 1989, some may be as recent as yesterday.

This file is part of a collection of files called Stefan's Florilegium. These files are available on the Internet at: http://www.florilegium.org

I have done a limited amount of editing. Messages having to do with separate topics were sometimes split into different files and sometimes extraneous information was removed. For instance, the message IDs were removed to save space and remove clutter.

The comments made in these messages are not necessarily my viewpoints. I make no claims as to the accuracy of the information given by the individual authors.

Please respect the time and efforts of those who have written these messages. The copyright status of these messages is unclear at this time. If information is published from these messages, please give credit to the originator(s).

Thank you,

Mark S. Harris AKA: THLord Stefan li Rous

Stefan at florilegium.org

************************************************************************

c at tmsoft.UUCP (Leigh Clayton) writes:

> I have heard many places that US and Canadian guages are different, but

> so far neither the postings here nor anyone else has managed to convey

> the difference to me. Can someone clear this up? Is it just that the

> Queen has wider/narrower thumbs than the president?

well, on the southern side of the border, for "sheet & plate, Iron and

Steel"

GA Decimal INches

20 .0375

18 .050

17 .056

16 .0625

15 .070

14 .078

15 .0937

12 .109

11 .125

10 .140

This information is right off of my sheet gage, which runs from

qa size of 0 (.3125") to 36 (.007")

R.J. Klessig Hayward Ca..........Ch'ndra P'nthi Esfenn Mists West.

From: cav at bmerh364.BNR.CA (Rick Cavasin)

Date: 2 Dec 91 20:58:08 GMT

Organization: Bell-Northern Research Ltd.

badorion at watyew.uwaterloo.ca (Brian A. Dorion) writes:

|>Greetings! I am looking for advice on sources of information on copper -

|>smithing. I am interested in trying my hand at making copper bowls (to start

|>with at least) and was hoping that I could get some recomendations on

|>good books on basic copperworking.

|>Brian Dorion Herr Konrad Matthias Jaeger

|>Kitchener, Ontario Bryniau Tywynnog, Ealdormere

|>Canada MK

Aside from the various books/sources mentioned by other

gentles, there are some sources closer to home you might

try.

Although you are unlikely to find any books specifically

on copper- smithing in your local library, you should be

able to find something under general metalwork, or silver-

smithing. The techniques used would be very similar.

I have seen a fairly comprehensive book on basic

metalwork in bookstores for about $17 (can't remember

the name off the top of my head but I plan to buy it).

Also try jeweller's supply stores (check yellow pages

or try Nautilus in Toronto).

Incidentally, many techniques used in silver smithing

are applicable to armouring.

Specifically, the techniques you will want to find out

about for making bowls are:

Construction: raising

sinking

planishing

Ornamentation: chasing and repouse

engraving

inlay and gilding

etching (late period)

If you have no luck, I have a bit of stuff I can

give you. Contact me at one of the Ealdormere 12th nights.

Balderik of the Pathless Wastes (Septemptrian exile)

From: donb at crash.cts.com (Donald Bowen)

Date: 3 Dec 91 20:31:18 GMT

Organization: Crash TimeSharing, El Cajon, CA

I have always wanted to try making bowls by a rolling technique.

The first step is to turn a bowl shaped mandrel. A metal disk is then

held against the mandrel with a block of wood and the tail stock. While

the metal and mandrel turn, the metal is rolled against the mandrel by

hand. I saw a magazine article about that about 30 years ago and want

to give it a try.

DonB

From: cav at bmerh364.BNR.CA (Rick Cavasin)

Date: 4 Dec 91 17:20:10 GMT

Organization: Bell-Northern Research Ltd.

donb at crash.cts.com (Donald Bowen) writes:

|> I have always wanted to try making bowls by a rolling technique.

|>The first step is to turn a bowl shaped mandrel. A metal disk is then

|>held against the mandrel with a block of wood and the tail stock. While

|>the metal and mandrel turn, the metal is rolled against the mandrel by

|>hand. I saw a magazine article about that about 30 years ago and want

|>to give it a try.

|> DonB

Are you asking for advice? I don't know whether the use of mandrels for

turning (spinning?) copper bowls would be a period technique, but I suspect

that it would be late period if at all. I would recommend 'raising' the

bowls from a 'purist' point of view, while sinking or dishing would be

the choice of expediency. Spinning would work, and would be the best choice

if mass production is your objective.

Regards,

Balderik

From: DEGROFF at intellicorp.COM (Leslie DeGroff)

Date: 4 Dec 91 18:24:00 GMT

Organization: The Internet

A couple little bits to the good comments already made.

I would add to Balderiks list of ornamentation techniques,

Nielo and enamaling, Nielo is a mixture of silver, sulfer and ? that

is melted into engraved lines and shows black against the polished metal.

My opinion of Metal Techniques for Craftsman by Oppi Untrachi is lower

that the recommenders, worth checking out from the library, NOT WORTH

buying. It is greatly padded with relativly poor pictures including

many pages half filled with pictures extracted directly from tool

catalogs. This leads to a useful point, you should be able to

get free or cheap catalogs of tools, gem and metal working supplies

that are educational as well as advertising. Untrachi is over 50$

there are a number of summary/survey books that cover as much for

12 to 20$, try a rock/gem shop most of which will order (with more

markup) specialized art metal tools for you.

Some one else mentioned mandrel forming and appeared to be looking for

more info... technique with lathe or spinning mandrel and rounded

pushing tool is called spinning, I believe that it is period but

not as common a hammer forming techniques, Untrachi ect will have

"insufficient" but more details. It you have access to lathes

this can be a "production" oriented process, recreating a

medieval lathe is not hard and can be very educational. (:) Much harder

will be to get a strong apprentice to act as the MOTOR :)) Some but

not all modern (mostly Tin) pewters will work, the state of

annealling is critical for copper which work hardens quickly.

In terms of personal library and research, metal working is another

area that I can recommend DOVER publishing, many titles of related

interest.

Les

From: jonesm at nic.cerf.net (Matthew Jones)

Date: 5 Dec 91 16:53:17 GMT

Organization: CERFnet

donb at crash.cts.com (Donald Bowen) writes:

> I have always wanted to try making bowls by a rolling technique.

>The first step is to turn a bowl shaped mandrel. A metal disk is then

>held against the mandrel with a block of wood and the tail stock. While

>the metal and mandrel turn, the metal is rolled against the mandrel by

>hand. I saw a magazine article about that about 30 years ago and want

>to give it a try.

If I assume correctly that this is all done on a lathe, in this case

wood metal etc will do, then what you describe sounds like metal spinning.

There are lathes specifically set up for this. There are books on this

subject, and the Community College near my house teaches it in a metal

shop class. Although it is not to common any more. They might talk

about metal spinning in the machinests guide.

Matthew Jones

jones at cerf.net

From: bpmeek at rodan.acs.syr.edu (Brian P. Meek)

Date: 11 Dec 91 23:05:11 GMT

Organization: Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY

Greetings Gentles,

I've been following along in the Msg backlog, and noticed the

discussion about spinning copper and if spinning is period or not.

First, speaking as a silversmith, annealed copper is one of the

easiest metals to spin...a good metal to learn with...avoid brass.

Also, do *NOT* attempt to spin except on a lathe especially designed

for that service: you run a good chance of hurting yourself,

and you WILL trash the bearings on your lathe. (EXPENSIVE to replace.)

Second, about it being period, yes, at least in silver.

There is a set of nested silver bowls that were discovered with the

Sutton-Hoo trove in England. (c. A.D. 650) that were spun.

According to the man who restored them for the British Museum,

they were spun *into* a negative mold, rather than over a positive

as is the modern custom, but they *were* spun.

I don't have the exact citations with me, but the two I recall are

Hurburt Maryon's _Enameling & Metalwork_ (still avalible thru Dover)

Maryon was the man who restored them for the BM, and the second book

is the BM's own site report: _The Sutton-Hoo Ship Burial_ (vol.3)

By Rupert Bruce-Mittford.

In service,

Alberic, The Samurai Silversmith

From: mjl at rutabaga.Rational.COM (Matthew Larsen)

Date: 12 Dec 91 03:01:28 GMT

I've wondered for a long time about whether spinning was used in period for

metalworking, and I've got a few pieces of information to offer. First off,

here is a section from "Craftsmanship and Function: A study of metal

vessels found in Viking Age tombs on the island of Gotland, Sweden" by

Gustaf Trotzig (Statens Historiska Museum, Stockholm 1991):

Another technique: Spinning

One manual technique which is practiced in modern production of

metal vessels should also be mentioned here, as it appears from

time to time in archaeological literature. The reason why there

has been this discussion of the method in relation to archaeo-

logical finds is the fact that tool marks in the shape of

excentric parallel stripes frequently occcur on metal vessels

from prehistoric times up to the Middle Ages [he gives some

citations]. These are no doubt in many cases the result of a

finishing work performed by means of a lathe, but have been

misinterpreted as signs of spinning.

[He goes on to discuss the technique of spinning and in

particular the power needed to spin brass, although admiting

that copper and silver require less horsepower to spin] (p. 51)

So Trotzig doesn't believe that spinning was used, at least during the

Viking period (he doesn't really say whether he thinks this applys to

later periods or not). Instead, he thinks the marks which are on items

like the Sutton Hoo bowls are the result of a final finishing on a lathe,

but that that finishing didn't involve shaping, so it's not spinning.

I don't know whether I trust Maryon or Trotzig more, but Trotzig's

research is more current.

On the other hand, I have seen references to documents from the 16th

century which stated that spinning had been banned from use in the

production of pewterware, to the satisfaction of the Pewterworkers

Guild :-) (I don't have a citation for this handy, if anyone is interested

I will try to look it up). Pewter, of course, is softer even than copper

and silver, to say nothing of brass, or it may be that people were using

water powered lathes by the 16th century, but not during the Viking period.

If anyone else has any insights to offer, I would love to hear them.

Geoffrey Mathias

Matt Larsen

mjl at rational.rational.com

Geoffrey Mathias

Matt Larsen

mjl at rational.rational.com

RE>Pennsic Tales

L.S.

Blister steel was the type of steel used throughout the

medieval time period, (in fact up through most of the 18th century!

it was superseded by "cast steel" which was common into our own

century.). It is called blister steel due to a side effect of its

manufacture.

The basic method is a case hardening process where you take

a piece of wrought iron and incase it in a clay box full of carbon

containing compounds and heat it up to red heat. Theophilius

describes this method in Divers Arts, under making files I believe.

The carbon from the compounds soaks into the wrought iron creating

a layer of "steel" on the outside of the piece. The carbon content

decreases the deeper into the piece you go. Time, temperature, and

what carbon compounds you use affect how deep and how high a carbon

content you get.

To do blister steel, you just try to "case harden it to the bone"

You keep it at high temperature for extended lengths of time, like

bright cherry for 6 hours to 3 days! This has a tendency to leave the

poor piece of wrought all "blistered". After cleaning it up you have

a billet of steel with varying carbon content. One way to equalize the

carbon content is to fold and weld several times.

I used a large fire to heat it cherry red for 10 hours and built my clay box

inside a piece of heavy pipe to protect it from logs being thrown on the fire.

For carbon compounds I used: horn shavings, powdered charcoal, bone meal and

leather. I haven't had a chance to play with it yet to see how well it worked.

The iron furnace was based on very early furnaces. It used a direct reduction

process...it did not "melt" the ore. See _Iron and Man_ for details.

The furnace was constructed of wattle and daub> We dug appx 300-500 lbs

of clay out of a creek and coated woven branches heavily. Fired it with

wood to dry the furnace, then charcoal when we were doing a run. Air

for the first run was supplied by two medium sized bellows. Ore was

Taconite pellets. More clay was applied to the outside of the furnace

as cracks developed. We did two runs and then broke open the furnace to

get the blooms and to examine it. It looked just like the ones dug

up by the archeologists! Size 3'high outside diameter top appx 16"

inside diameter top appx 10".

It was very hot to run but what a blast!!!!

I didn't know about the furnace project until I was on site. I was

talking to everyone I met about blister steel and lucked onto the group

doing the iron furnace. Talk with everyone! I usually bring my forge

and projects as well as learning/teaching from anyone who is interested.

Using the net is a good way to find out if anyone is planning to do

something interesting. Did you see the pole lathes that were set up

on the backside of eastrealm royal for people to play with?

The group I was with is planning to do a viking craft village at Pennsic,

next year I hope! Send me e-mail next July and I will reply with all

I know about goings on.

I plan to make a furnace at home now...

Wilelm the smith

Barony of the Middle Marches

Middle Kingdom

MKA W.T.Powers

1409 S. 5th St.

Columbus, OH 43207

614-443-3200

Newsgroups: rec.org.sca

Subject: Re: To Enamel or Not to Enamel...

From: pears at latcs1.lat.oz.au (Arnold N Pears)

Date: Mon, 4 Oct 1993 02:36:11 GMT

Organization: Comp Sci, La Trobe Uni, Australia

mwolfe at epas.utoronto.ca (Menya Wolfe) writes:

>Black paint is often mistakenly referred to as enamel, and a material

>called niello was commonly used on armour, but only as an inlay.

^^^^^^

I am interested in this statement about niello work on armour.

I have seen lots of gilding, and blueing, but not niello.

So far as I was aware niellow work inlay was mostly used

on jewelery and silver tableware.

Could you help me with some refs on niello work on armour.

Part of my work at the moment is on decorative armour styles.

NOTE: For those interested niello is an alloy of silver copper and lead.

Benvenuto Cellini gives a recipe for it in his

"Treatise on Goldsmithing", which is most easily found in translation

from the Italian in the Dover publication,

"The Treatises of Benvenuto Cellini on Goldsmithing and Sculpture"

Trans. C.R. Ashbee

ISBN 0-486-21568-7

Published in 1967.

This book was still in print last year and is available from most good

libraries.

Recipe:

1 oz silver

2 oz copper

3 oz lead

Melt silver and copper in a crucible, when molten and well mixed

add the lead. Remove any scum with your charcoal stiring rod.

Pour into another container holding pure sulphur, stop up and

shake to react the sulphur with your alloy. You should get

black granules of niello.

Now extract the grains and cast them into a block of niello

by melting under gentle heat with a pinch of borax.

WARNING:

This alloy uses lead so don't inhale fumes of it OK :-)

BTW Have you tried the fire enameling techniques described by

Cellini? I have yet to summon up the courage to expose my work in

a precious metal to direct fire.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Arnold Pears. Computer Sci. Dept. AARNET : pears at latcs1.lat.oz.au

La Trobe Uni., Bundoora Vic. 3083, Australia. "Well here we all are then."

Office: +61 3 479-1144 -ME

From: DDF2 at cornell.edu (David Friedman)

Newsgroups: rec.org.sca

Subject: Re: To Enamel or Not to Enamel...

Date: 4 Oct 1993 23:34:23 GMT

Organization: Cornell Law School

Arnold N Pears:

> NOTE: For those interested niello is an alloy of silver copper and lead.

As is clear from the recipe you quote later, this is wrong. The molten

alloy is poured into sulfur and the resulting mixture of metallic sulphides

(I think that is right, but do not swear to the chemistry) is what you use.

Consider what happens when you put lead, or an alloy made largely of lead,

on silver jewelry and heat it--not at all what you wanted.

David/Cariadoc

DDF2 at Cornell.Edu

Newsgroups: rec.org.sca

Subject: Re: To Enamel or Not to Enamel...

From: pears at latcs1.lat.oz.au (Arnold N Pears)

Date: Wed, 6 Oct 1993 04:23:38 GMT

Organization: Comp Sci, La Trobe Uni, Australia

In article <DDF2-041093193147 at cu-dialup-0210.cit.cornell.edu> DDF2 at cornell.edu (David Friedman) writes:

Previously I wrote...

>> NOTE: For those interested niello is an alloy of silver copper and lead.

>As is clear from the recipe you quote later, this is wrong. The molten

>alloy is poured into sulfur and the resulting mixture of metallic sulphides

>(I think that is right, but do not swear to the chemistry) is what you use.

Hmm, I agree that there is a sulphide based reaction there, but the metallic

sulphides created by the initial sulphur/alloy reaction are re-melted and

cast several times afterwards.

While there is a sulphur component I still maintain that if the

result can be remelted and cast it must be an alloy.

We now need to determine what reaction has occured, and whether

that reaction completely reduces one or more components of the

alloy.

Can any chemists help here?

>Consider what happens when you put lead, or an allow made largely of lead,

>on silver jewelry and heat it--not at all what you wanted.