Pressure

Pressure is a three part set i made to go along side my tables. While the tables explore the idea of motion in steel i wanted to show off the compressing force.

 

THE TABLES ARE FINISHED

The mighty albatross around my neck that has been these tables is finally done. I have loved building them and working out the little problems a long the way but man they have taken a long time.

BUT THERE FINALLY DONE.

I spent the whole day put them together using every hammer and wrench i own. For such simple looking tables it took more than i thought to get them right. Come to my show at the college if you want to see them in person. 

Compression

I recently set out on the trail of building sculptures. Not something i usually do because i am more a function kind of man. I really enjoyed this though because it let me unshackle myself.

I have some pictures of the building and then i want to talk about what is behind it.

I wanted to show with this collection of pieces is the transformation i see all the time. I move the greatest material on earth with such a fluidity that it constantly baffles and amazes me. I get to see that all the time and i still love it. So hopefully a little taste of that beauty for the rest will make them love it too.

Hammer Making

Good morning fine people.

I wanted to do a post today about my history with hammer making. I have had some fun with building of hammers over the three years and i have made some really useful ones.

The first hammer i ever made was a small leafing hammer for use on repousse something that i never really do. The hammer really has never been used but the building of it was the most fun.

 Details of the Repousse hammer

Because it was such a small hammer i did all of the work myself. I punched the hole and did all the fullering with a little help from the power hammers but the finishing was all by hand. I am quite proud of this hammer even though it sits collecting dust.

My second hammer was a little bit of a repair job. I was working at a friends forge when i asked about forging a hammer on his super nice power hammer. We couldn't find a decent sized piece of steel to forge up but we did find a battered hammer in the back that had seen a lot better days. I thought that it could be repaired with the grinder but he had the idea of changing it from a ball pein to a cross pein and cleaning up the face.

 Details of the reforged hammer.

This hammer is by far the most used out of the three i will be showing off. After i had repaired it, it still weighed around 3 pounds so i mostly use it for moving big metal or driving tools in. 

The next hammer was part of a competition we had to see who could build the fastest hammer. We all had six hours to build it up, I was working alone hoping to make a 2 pound cross pein hammer while some of the other teams were making turning hammers and some very impressive ball peins.

 Details of the competition hammer.

I am quite proud of what i ended up with. I was only one of 3 that ended up with a finished hammer, a few people even managed to destroy there's all together.

This was a short post on my hammer making over the three years and a super exciting process. If you get a chance you should do it.

Tables

I decided that the squishes would be used as a component. There was a little playing around whether it would be a table or a fire basket, at one point i was thinking maybe a chair. I changed my mind though and went for a table.

I like tables, its a universal tool that can look a million different ways. Very similar to my squishes.

I put together a few designs for the legs, some a little crazier than others.

 A few sketches of ideas.

I played around with sketches almost as much as i played with the initial squishes. I settled on the idea of having a squish as the foot of the leg and a connecting bar. The bar had to have something going on with it to make it feel like the squishes. I couldn't use the power hammer on it unless i wanted a really short table so i had to go back to basics.

Upsetting a piece of bar is how you would put a mass into the end of a bar. I don't mind it but there is far too much control in it to be an essential part of the table. I want order and chaos in the tables not just order and chaos on the bottom.

 These are some samples of idea's.

I had to work on making the upset look a littler crazier rather than a flat piece of bar into the squish. I settled up going with square bar slightly upset on the end with different angles. I figured that if i straightened up the bar afterwards there would be a lot more movement in the legs.

A few pictures of the building process.

In the next few weeks i will be putting up pictures of the tables now they are finished. I got table tops made up that were a lot better than the rough plywood. I am quite happy with how they are both progressing. Come this time next week i should have them together enough for a photo.

 

Squishing

Ever since i started blacksmithing i have been a little obsessed with power hammers. There raw power and strength is so sexy, how they can take a super hard materiel and move it like water. When we were offered to look further into our own pratice and what we wanted to do i obviously took this opportunity to do anything with power hammers.

I had done a little work with crushing hot steel under the hammer to make candle holders and really liked the chaos and order to it. You can get the same bar at the same length and hit it the same amount of times but it will do a completely different thing. To me that is fascinating that you have an infinite amount of possibles every time it goes under the hammer.

The first piece i did was just some round bar under the hammer.

 A picture of the first sample.

This was the eye opener for me. I spent the next two weeks getting my hands on any kind of bar i could and putting it under the hammer. Square, box section, pipe section, hexagon bar. Every time a different result and every sample i wanted to do more with it.

A couple photos of the progression

As i was running out of different kinds of bar i decided the best way to really progress my work along was to start tampering with the bar before it went under the hammer. I would no longer just used fresh cut section but instead slice or push a tool into to make more unique.

This had some amazing results, some of the finer pieces i have ever produced came from this part of sampling. I made samples that i don't know i made them but i cant stop looking at them. Pushing a tool in didn't work massively well but the slicing had great results.

I tried to do it in some different ways with the grinder and cutting disk. I sliced in horizontal, vertical, diagonal. Took pieces out with the cutting disk and even sliced some straight in half.

 A few of the sliced samples.

Now i have always been a man that is very focused on giving something a purpose. An item having function is very essential to my work over something being purely sculptural. So i was loving sampling and playing with what i could get out of it but i needed to find something they could be. I was never going to make just a pile of beautiful looking samples.

I wracked my brain for a long time what they could be? Were they going to be a component in something? Or were they something as they were? Maybe a super interesting paper weight.

In the next post i would like talk about how thinking of a purpose lead me to building the tables ideas and where i would like to go with them.

Back with a Bang

Howdy folks. It has been quite a while since i wrote something here and i figured it was about time to get it back up and running.

So here is a few highlights of what im working on with pictures to follow.

I am currently finishing off the final few weeks of my Uni course by building a set of tables and a trio of sculptures. Sounds like a big work load but i am on top of it luckily.

Here is just a few snaps.