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[toomanytoasters.livejournal.com]

ah, metalsmithing :) I think this counts as crafty

my last project in metalsmithing was to make chasing tools and put a design into either brass or copper. (I picked brass because I thought the pirate design would look better) Making the tools took longer than the chasing because I wanted to put twists in the squared off tools to make them easier to turn. The skinny one has a nice counter twist :) I made 5 tools; straight liner, curved liner, little tooth detail punch, a pusher, and a planisher for smoothing (which I hardly used). The tools are made out of tool grade steel and oil hardened. They used to be much shinier before I used them, heheh.



I made 2 pieces, a goo monster (like a simplified Slimer) and a skull and crossbones pirate thing. I made the goo monster first and didn't round it out as much as the skull. The skull turned out much better, although it looks lumpy and not really skull-like. But I wanted something piratey to match the huge flag in my apartment =^_^= I want to dip it in liver of sulpher (which will turn the metal black) and sand the skull so it will stay brass colored and shiny. These aren't very big, maybe 3 inches square or so. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with them yet.





the underside

I made these by heating the metal (annealing) and putting it in a cast iron skillet full of pitch (the pitch gives enough for you to punch in the design while keeping the rest of the metal straight) and tap the tools into the metal in the shape I wanted to with a chasing hammer. The tools were put in a forge and hammered into shape (well, at least the pusher and both liners). The planisher and tooth shape were ground and sanded. I am a huge art dork, if this doesn't make sense I will try to explain better :P