...

I've been known to wank off from time to time. ;)

(Sorry about the pun, but that was pretty much inevitable.)

Dark Jedi

Coolness.

For silver/jewelrysmithing, the disciplines are very similar. It is really a matter of scale, with some steel tempering knowledge added.

I have never cast anything, my forge is not hot enough to cast iron, and I have had no need to cast bronze or the like, yet. I may look in to it when I try to replicate Legolas' twin swords this summer. Being a poor boy, I will make the pommels out of bronze and polish the hell out of them for a gold look.

The etch work, it turns out, will be a mite easy. I have a nice trace of the originals found on a website. I will trace them in negative with a sealant wax, and etch it out while the metal is still pretty soft with flouric acid. Anneal and temper, some polish work and the blade is done! (I hope!)

I want to make Sting, but shudder at the prospect. That is one complex short sword. A challenge! I sense a challenge!

Opera Nut

I took a jewelry making class and we did lost wax casting in silver or gold, depending on your means and preference. They were little items but "slingin' metal" was fun. You never knew how it would come out looking.

A lot of women are getting into forging etc. My teacher was into it and she made bizarre items out of silver like large crawfish with hinged plates. We used a cute little Prestolite torch (one tank) to melt our silver in the crucible.

The local Museum of Fine Arts has a large casting course that sounds fun. I assume that for bronze casting you start with clay instead of wax for your original form.

Dark Jedi

That depends. For original works you can use the lost wax method. Carve the item out of wax, then make a mold around the wax of sand or clay. Heat it up and the wax runs out..... fill with molten metal of choice and cool. Break mold for exact duplicate of wax model in preferred metal.

WWSD

We used wax for all of our castings. I used to cast with a big acetylene and O2 torch that made a really great popping sound if you could time shutting off the valves just right.

I don't remember what gram weight we used to case, but it was over 300 I'm sure. I used to cast on a vacuum casting machine and we did about 30 cans a day. We had an oven that went up to 3000F that we used to cook the cans and it would be around 1500 when we took them out to pour the metal. The whole process was dirty and smelled bad.

I liked smithing better, since it was smaller, not as hot, and I could do all sorts of neat things. I made a lot of jewelry, most of which was sold.


It might be a fun hobby, but I didn't like it that much as a job.

Non-praying Mantis

WWSD, these questions may sound odd, but there is definitely a reason (albeit a geeky one) behind why I am asking them:

1) Have you sold any of the products of your silversmithing?

2) If so, how much did you sell them for, compared to the value of the raw material?

3) Approximately, how long does it take to make an item, depending on size and complexity?

NPM

Cipher Girl

We made our items out of wax, then added sprues (passageways for molen metal). Then build a mold of plaster and sand around them. Then burned the wax out of the mold (heating the mold to 1200 degrees). Then taking the hot molds and packing them into damp sand. Finally the bronze was poured into the molds. After letting the bronze cool for a couple of hours, the molds were broken open and the bronze was revealed. After that there was a lot of work cutting off the sprues, and giving the bronze a light polishing and patinaing.

Wow, a lot of work.

WWSD

Originally posted by Non-praying Mantis
WWSD, these questions may sound odd, but there is definitely a reason (albeit a geeky one) behind why I am asking them:

You're not the FBI are you?


1) Have you sold any of the products of your silversmithing?[/b]

I did sell a lot of my stuff actually.


2) If so, how much did you sell them for, compared to the value of the raw material?

Its been a long, long time, but we used to factor in raw material cost, and sivler is always fluctuating. Then add on labor time. I was paid a measly 6.50$ an hour. Then there would be a markup from there, like 10% or 20% I forget.


3) Approximately, how long does it take to make an item, depending on size and complexity?


The little cross I made that I wear cosists of 18 guage plate sawed into the cross form, then there are 9 shots (little silver balls made by melting) and some various other lengths of silver bezel. All in all it took me about .5 hours to make. I made some big pieces that took over an hour, depending on how big. A big buckle takes a long time, hour to 2 hours, and a large necklace might take the same amount of time. Add in cleaning time and stone setting time (turquoise mostly, but I did do some amythest stuff as well) and you start to take longer. One large piece could take me three hours to do completely if I remember correctly.

WWSD

We used to make large trees out of the wax items that we were going to cast. Sometimes we'd pack hundreds of items onto a tree. Then we'd seal them onto these rubber bases, put a large steel can around them, and pour some kind of plaster around them.

After that we'd put them into a large steam dewaxer, then into the oven overnight for the ultraburn out.

I used to spin cast but it was crappy, dangerous, and wasn't as efficient as vacuum. When we got a vacuum caster my technique reached godlike perfection and I could cast almost anything without bubbles, pits or incomplete peices.

The vacuum caster was neat, not that dangerous, adn I got the feel of it quickly. After pouring the molten silver or bronze into the mold, we'd vacuum it, wait a few minuted and put the can aside to cool a little. Once the button (chunk of metal showing at the top of the can) was no longer glowing, we'd dunk the can into a large bucket of water. It would boil violently for a mintute and then all the plaster would be gone.

We could retrieve the new metal tree, which then had to be cleaned and clipped. The little peices were then tumbled overnight in a large, loud, and annoying roller tumbler. The next day we would retreive all the pieces out of the tumbling media, grind down the sprues and put them into another tumbler, which was a virbating tumbler. It was loud. Very loud.

I hated the whole process and I am glad to be done with it.

The Other Michael

Pounding the odd bit of hot steel or aluminum for motorcycle chassis bits is all I do. It is interesting to see just how far you can push the metal before it protests.

cheers,
Michael