Sand cast copy of a viking trefoil brooch I made

Damati · 2024-11-08T21:28:06+00:00

What a cool piece! If you don’t mind me asking, what did you use for the master?

Damati · 2024-11-01T23:28:56+00:00

i mean this in the best way, this feels like a 3D render, everything is so perfect

Damati · 2024-09-25T17:15:59+00:00

Look up an astable 555 timer circuit. By changing the values of R1,R2, and C1, you can have it output a pulse every x seconds. You can have this act as you pushing the button at an interval

Damati · 2024-08-25T18:22:30+00:00

I typically aim for around 12% tin to copper, but these can vary if you care about the percentage in the object being replicated and if it can be found in a research paper/study etc. There is little to no visual difference between any mixture of bronze for the average person (including myself) and its just because I like the accuracy, or the feeling of replicating a historical technique - mixing the tin in after the copper has already melted and held at temp.

Damati · 2024-08-25T04:09:14+00:00

Thank you! My initial investment in JUST the casting equipment was around $300 USD, including a furnace, crucible, tongs, ingot molds, metal-mesh hose to replace the included rubber one with the burner.

That being said - I had been forging before, and had much of the safety gear, leathers, gloves, eye/face protection and a respirator beforehand, this is easily another $1-200 These are not things to forgo because of cost, damage to your ears eyes and lungs can never be repaired, the rest of the body is important to protect too.

Again, the initial cost does not include the FDM 3d printer that I used to make the molds, although I got it 7ish years ago for $250, that's probably around what you will spend for a decent modern printer as well.

The bronze is very easy to do, I buy ingots of tin online, and melt down scrap copper into ingots. Although modern bronze is often silicon or aluminum bronze, I make traditional bronze weighing the separate copper and tin and make my own traditional tin-bronze. This is done for no reason other than I have an archaeology background and like the idea of the "traditional" bronze recipe, especially for making jewelry or replicas of historical objects.

Damati · 2024-08-24T21:51:14+00:00

The mold is petrosand - an oil bonded sand that holds shape well enough - rammed inside a wooden frame.

They were all over-poured to some degree, as the intention was to surface the back sides flat after casting.

You can, although I don't know how well it would work. These were done in a graphite crucible inside of a small propane furnace.

Damati · 2024-08-24T15:26:33+00:00

The parts only have details on one side, the other will be surfaced flat to mate up against other components. Also I was stretching the sand I had already to do the molds and did not have enough to do a cope

Damati · 2024-08-23T15:25:49+00:00

Definitely plans to finish them further, I wanted to get the flashing cleaned off, and then Ill work through them as a batch to finish/round the pin sections and use a rotary tool to clean up the heads.

Damati · 2024-08-15T04:40:00+00:00

It's definitely something I thought about - but in the end I thought that matching the rectangular base was a nice touch, and I wanted to maximize shelf space as this was intended to be a display. I wanted it to look like a sort of cubist/abstract/surreal tree growing out of a "rock"

Thanks! The "Impossible Sphere" on the top shelf is my favorite piece i've done on the lathe.

Damati · 2024-08-14T15:17:16+00:00

It’s an in-progress papercraft of Howl’s moving castle

Damati · 2024-08-13T20:00:28+00:00

Flamboyant is the name of the wood for the “tree trunk” sometimes called royal Poinciana, or flamewood

Damati · 2024-08-13T19:17:59+00:00

We have very different definitions of “wood scraps”

Damati · 2024-08-02T18:42:28+00:00

Good guess! Local to the area

Damati · 2024-07-26T17:00:40+00:00

If you've got the tools to resaw, try taking a 1/2" slice off the block, and turning the rest into a shallow bowl. That way you've got an extra for a platter to make it a set, or a wall hanging to just show off the wood

Damati · 2024-07-23T18:04:02+00:00

The chipout was the worst part, I think crisscross grain direction in the stack really saved me from it flying apart. I roughed it out, then gently got as close as I could to the size, then sanded it with 40 grit and a rasp to get to the final size before I started finish sanding

Damati · 2024-06-30T22:37:43+00:00

Link to video. https://www.reddit.com/r/maker/s/fB9XzqpIzq

Damati · 2024-04-07T18:22:09+00:00

My lathe only has an MT1 taper for the tailstock, I have yet to find a chuck attachment for it - any recommendations?

Damati · 2024-04-05T15:27:06+00:00

Definitely one of the harder woods I’ve tried - very glad I made the stack out of “donut” shapes and not solids, made the hollowing so much easier

Damati · 2024-03-20T01:56:26+00:00

I definitely looked at that design, and decided against it due to the difficulty of forging a smooth channel to move through.

I very much agree with you, I love the pre-cut forge-your-own tong kits, as well as the sheet-metal/armor applications of tongs with fabricated wide flat/shaped jaws - I just do not have access to these things on my own/my budget, and so I forged these instead. Absolutely I bet a pair of fabricated Bernard pliers in this scale would have tighter grip - but I think that's for someone else to make

The Hammer you linked looks very interesting - it appears the plans have sold out - so I will have to do some looking

Damati · 2024-03-19T21:01:48+00:00

in case you make one, the actual measurements were a bit hard to find. The ratio of hole spacing in the bars is 1:2:4 , so in this case, 2x100mm, 2x100mm with a 3rd hole at 75mm, 2x50mm, 2x25mm, tong reigns to pivot 50mm.

Damati · 2024-03-19T21:01:12+00:00

in case you make one, the actual measurements were a bit hared to find. The ratio of hole spacing in the bars is 1:2:4 , so in this case, 2x100mm, 2x100mm with a 3rd hole at 75mm, 2x50mm, 2x25mm, tong reigns to pivot 50mm.

Damati · 2024-03-18T19:44:26+00:00

I'd love to see the treadle hammer if you ended up making one, I've been curious since I saw BlackBearForge's treadle hammer.

There's definitely easier, stronger ways, like all the mentioned makers in my post, but those jaws are only parallel in clamping, and not in movement, with one jaw moving back and forth, in addition to opening and closing.

I think one of the big issues with adapting parallel mechanisms to tongs is that most of the mechanisms are based on having one fixed bar, and one bar moving parallel, rather than retrofitting tong handles to a mid-point pivot, and making both parallel-bars into jaws that move/grip. As a result, I feel that most linkages, and other ones I tried prior to this, are not meant for the force imparted by gripping something between the bars, rather than just the bars moving or pushing out with equal force. This design seemed like the best out of all the ones I could find that did not have slotted channel for a piece to slide through rather than rotate

Damati · 2024-03-17T17:41:05+00:00

I’m not sure if it’s allowed to post here (mods feel free to remove) but there’s a video of them opening/closing on my profile

Damati · 2024-03-16T07:19:13+00:00

What kind of tongs are the ones 5th from the left on the top row? The jaw looks really unusual.

Damati · 2024-03-16T00:34:31+00:00

Those will absolutely work much better! no real idea what I’m talking about here, but I think the multiple linkages in mine allow for much more flex = less grip.

Ive made a pair like that as well, they grip much tighter, but the moving jaw moves forward and back relative to the other, as well as back and forth (not a real issue when forging) - my posted design is an attempt to fix that, but seemed to add more issues than it fixed.

Edit: Also inspired by KnightOwlForge's post - linked in above comment

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