I’ve had some success making copper bowls. I’ve watched too many YouTubes and continue to study the Silversmith bible by Finegold and Seitz. But I haven’t figured out how to make the form narrow. My bowls have a nice regular shape, but I can’t get them to narrow into a cup or a more circular bowl.
I can’t see the stakes being used in the videos. Can someone please share some guidance on the type of stake and hammer pattern to use, beyond what is in Finegold and Seitz.
I don’t own that book, so I can’t tell you anything about it.
Folks commonly make bowls using the sinking process, which is forming technique that stretches the sheet metal. Essentially pounding sheet metal into a depression, usually in a wooden stump and then refining the shape with a leather mallet and a mushroom stake (called bouging). Sinking a bowl is a comparatively easy technique to master.
To make a cup form you’ll need to do what’s called raising. That’s way more difficult and complicated to describe with written words. A basic explanation is that raising is a hammering technique where the sheet metal is both constricted and stretched with a cross peen raising hammer and a raising tee-stake.
There’s a bunch of YouTube videos on raising out there. That might be helpful
You asked what the stakes look like. This is a miniature raising stake by Fretz tools. That’s not going to be much help, but it shows the shape.
Metal forming stakes are harder to find these days. Metal forming stakes almost exclusively used to be made by a company called Dixon. I’m pretty sure that Dixon went out of business. For sure, they don’t make stakes anymore. You can maybe still find used Dixon stakes on eBay.
Here is a standard raising hammer.
I checked the forum for other threads about raising. Maybe this will be of some help.
https://orchid.ganoksin.com/search?q=raising
I wish that I had some easy answers for you. I’ve done a lot of raising in the past. Finding a good in-person mentor will be there most efficient way to learn this technique. This is a common weekend workshop topic. Part of what makes raising be difficult to learn is that metal sort of likes to stretch, but it doesn’t like to constrict in on itself. You have to do both at once with raising. Which can be a struggle.
Maybe others will have better advice. Best of luck!
Jeff
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Thanks so much Jeff! Yes, stretching is easy for me. I’m diligently working on my raising and would love to find a class. Your stake and hammer examples are also great. I’d happily travel for a weekend class in raising if anyone has suggestions.
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See Valentin Yatkov’s classes. Awesome master Craftsman.
I’ve been looking all over for raising and metal forming stakes for sale. I’m not seeing any.
Does anyone have any ideas for sources? For a while Kevin Potter was making them, but I don’t see that he still is producing them.
A while back ago Otto Frei told me that they bought up the last of Dixon’s metal forming stakes. They’re all gone now.
I’d say in some ways getting the right equipment might be your biggest hurdle.
David Huang is an amazing metal vessel maker and teacher. He produces metal forming stakes for sale. They’re expensive though.
I’m not seeing that Valentin Yatkov is teaching raising these days. Just chasing. But yes, he’s incredibly talented!!
Because metal forming stakes are so expensive and hard to find sometimes working in a shared studio arrangement is best.
Don’t tell us where you live, but can you share the general area? We might be able to recommend a school or art center close by with the equipment that you need.
I’ll keep thinking.
Thanks!
Jeff
My great aunt made replica pewter vessels for, I think,the Henry Ford Museum. She turned blank disks over wooden forms on a lathe. That metal is soft but maybe dead soft copper could be worked the same way.
That is called spinning and it is done on a type of lathe. The piece of wood is shaped like the desired finish shape of the metal disc. If you want to narrow the opening, the wooden shape needs to be made in pieces that can be attached to each other, but separated and removed from the finished metal piece through the narrow opening. Others among us may actually do this and can add to the discussion, however the OP was asking about rising a vessel…Rob
Jeff,
I have a rather complete set of stakes from the estate of a jewelry craftsman that I am liquidating. They have surface rust from being in the closed studio for four years and it’s my intention to polish them all up before I sell them, because they will bring more that way and the money is to be used for the owner’s care now that he is in assisted living. I don’t have a complete inventory right now, but there are small and large stakes and even one that is three feet long. I asked him why he had that, because I’d only seen jewelry from his shop, but he told me at one point he’d raised bowls and even made liturgical silver! I guess you can get into a lot of things in a 60 year career! Anyone interested in a set of stakes can email me at jewelrystudiosale@gmail.com. I mean there are about 25 or 30 of them and a set of hammers, too. I would like to sell the set or a good portion of it to one person who would pick up in or near the Knoxville, TN area. There’s even a roll around bench for all the stakes and hammers that goes with it! Possibility of a meet-up in the East Coast area within a few hundred miles of Knoxville, if someone will pay my gas. Make me an offer I can’t refuse…
-royjohn
I’ve had some success making copper bowls. I’ve watched too many YouTubes and continue to study the Silversmith bible by Finegold and Seitz. But I haven’t figured out how to make the form narrow. My bowls have a nice regular shape, but I can’t get them to narrow into a cup or a more circular bowl.
I can’t see the stakes being used in the videos. Can someone please share some guidance on the type of stake and hammer pattern to use, beyond what is in Finegold and Seitz.
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royjohn…I have a polishing job waiting for you. Good luck…Rob
You’re sitting on a gold mine there royjohn! Well, a steel mine. I’m not sure about the hammers, but I’m pretty sure that all of those stakes are vintage Dixon stakes.
When I was an undergrad art student in the 1970’s I was obsessed with raising. Because I used the stakes more than anyone else, I got assigned the work-study job of keeping them polished. Then in that same era, I went to Penland for the first time and talked my way into staying the whole summer because they didn’t have a jewelry student assistant way back then. I told them that they needed someone to keep their steel tools polished and maintained. That summer helped put me on my life’s path. Suffice it to say that I’ve polished a lot of stakes and hammers in my life.
For stakes, whenever possible I prefer a random orbital sander to prefinish before polishing. I’ve discovered that while it goes faster to use a coarser grit, you ended up sanding out coarser grit scratches for a long time, so I never go coarser than 220 grit if absolutely necessary, 400 is where I prefer to start and get finer after that.
For polishing compound, I’ve tried them all, but bobbing compound is my favorite. You do need to be careful with polishing stakes on a buffing machine. You don’t want to lose control of a gigantic piece of oddly shaped heavy steel.
For hammers, whenever possible I polish them with my diamond lapidary grinder/polisher (the diamond resin/cloth/rubber-backed wheels, not the hard diamond/steel wheels). That works especially well with flat to slightly rounded shapes like a planishing hammer. Steel hammers polish up beautifully that way.
I hope that helps a bit with your task. It’s a big job no matter how you do it!
From the picture, these don’t look in too bad of shape. Before you know it these hammers and stakes will look as shiny and beautiful as what Jo recently showed in her studio!
Thanks for sharing!
Jeff
royjohn…My fat fingers made a typo. I should have typed “You have a polishing job waiting for you.”…Rob
Here is a link to a useful stake. When you are toeing the metal circle to make it slope inward, switch to this type of stake. It will only be good for a few rounds of passes. The you need to also have a ball headed stake to planish it. The second link is for the ball stake. They come n all sizes. Just wait until you need a snarling stake. A cheap alternative for the ball stake when you need a real big one s a bowling ball. Have a metal shop put a sold metal rod into it to hold it while it is in a vise/holder A solution to a vise/holder is to get a stake plate.
For more stakes, google, forging stakes
https://www.etsy.com/listing/753841509/metal-and-jewelry-double-ended-forming?gpla=1&gao=1&
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Hey Folks,
Now where else but here could I find someone like JeffG who would recognize those stakes from one photo of the whole collection? Good eye, Jeff! I have a nice jewelry buffer that takes 6 inch wheels and has a dust removal system with a squirrel cage blower in it, but after seeing all the dust and grime in my friend’s studio after 10 or 20 years of buffing, I decided to move the buffer outdoor bcs my workshop is in the walk-out basement, so I can put it right out the door and cover it with a tarp while the weather is good. I had planned to use my belt sander set upside down and keep the stakes moving like you would with a cabochon, but maybe I can look for an orbital sander, too. I know I have one somewhere…thanks for the advice on the grits to use. There are a couple of stakes that have marks in them where someone missed the silver with a hammer, so I may need to use a file some…at least that’s what my friend said he did when he hit the stake with the edge of a hammer head…stay tuned…I don’t know if this will be a gold mine or not if all the labor were charged out at $20/hr, but it sounds like the surface rust will come off pretty quickly. So, Jeff, you like bobbing compound for polishing steel? Someone local told me to use Simichrome…about the same? -royjohn
I’ve found that polishing steel is kind of like polishing platinum. It’s not as easy to polish as silver or gold. Because of that it’s probably best to start with gentle solutions, see what happens and go from there. Like I said before, you don’t want to add in deep scratches that you have go spend a lot of effort to remove.
As far as I know Simichrome is to maintain steel that’s already been polished and just needs a touch up. My experience with Simichrome is that it’s a chemical polishing cream and a very mild polishing abrasive. (I don’t know what the chemicals are?) You apply it with soft cloth, not a buffing machine. Give it a try as a first step. It’s not going to hurt anything and if it works, it will save you a lot of work.
But if you have dents or deep rust spots those are going to have to be removed with a file or sander and then polished.
What I like about bobbing compound is that it’s one of the most abrasive buffing compounds and has a fairly greasy binder that doesn’t promote buffing compound caking on what you’re buffing.
Another path is to consider some of the info in this thread. But again if you have dents and divets those will have to be removed with files or sanding followed by buffing.
Unrelated, I reached out to Steve Frei, owner of Otto Frei yesterday to see if he was interested in buying the whole lot of your stakes and hammers. Steve said that he’s not buying used tools anymore, but we talked about stakes in general. He said that Grobet is making some stakes that are special order, but they’re $1000 each. He said that Fretz has some medium size stakes for $300ish. He said that he was working with blacksmith who was making stakes, but that he’s gone out of business. Steve said the used stake market is pretty much what’s left right now. Kind of sad really. But maybe good for your friend that you’re helping!
One other thing to consider is since you’re selling them, do a minimal amount of refurbishing and let the new owner take it on. What you’re proposing to do is very big job!
Jeff
royjohn…I use simichrome to maintain the polish on my polished steel surfaces. It doesn’t really remove rust that has already formed. I use it on my rollers, hammers, anvils and mandrels. I also use Quick Wax once these surfaces are polished. This discussion is making me feel guilty as most of my polished steel surfaces are in need of a touch up as a result of heavy use and summer humidity. Jeff Herman used to have some suggestions on his website, but it is hard to navigate. Good luck…Rob
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Roy John…you might wasn’t to approach some of the jewelry schools as possible purchasers for the full set of hammers and stakes. They are a glorious lot of stuff! Although many of them look very large.
I know there is a school in Mesa Az ( sorry I forgot the name) that has a bowl and vessel metalsmithing class. Also, the jewelry school in Paris, TX might be interested. Cynthia Eid recently taught a bowl making class at Metalwerx, so that is another possibility.
If you do decide to sell some individual pieces, i would be interested in some of the smaller hammers and a few stakes.
Best of luck polishing and selling!
Aggie. Thanks so very much. I ordered the stake you suggested and am ow sleuthing outa used bowling ball.
Urban Metal Studio is in Mesa, AZ, offering regular classes in raising and vessel forming.