Hi Guys,
I’d completed my practical assignemts for the class for this
semester, and was left with nothing to do, so I thought
what-the-hell.
I already had some some ancinet bronze sheets that I had made prior,
tiny things, and I had a small piece of sterling silver, which I
rolled really thin, and cut into pieces to match the bronze sheets.
I didn’t have a forge setup in the class, just a torch and a some
fire bricks.
I wired the ends, and proceeded to cook the sheets. I got the billet
to red, then realised that I neede an extra hand… bugger. I got a
class mate to hold the torch then I reheated the metal, then gently
smacked the billet with a ball pein hammer.
Considering how I did this I wasn’t expecting much, however I did
manage to get something usable. From the part of the billet that
didn’t delaminate, I got enough to file and roll. Not an art work
mind you, but enough to baffle my class mates and to impress a
teacher.
I learnt a lot from the experiment. You don’t need flux to do
mokume, a forge or a kiln would have provided better results, I could
see when the billet was ready to fuse, and I came to the conclusion
that mokume is far easier to do than ferris metal pattern welding.
Of course this is only based on my experiences, so others may have
different findings.
Regards Charles A.
P.S. I’m chuffed 