Does anyone know of a way to make a home made *Sinusoidal Stake ? Or
perhaps use and existing item ?
Thanks
Brett
Hi Brett:
I just finished writing a handout on how to do this. I’m doing
anticlastic raising with my advanced folks this term.
You can download it here:
http://tinyurl.com/yhcgq5b
I made a bunch of extra stakes to use for taking pictures for the
handout, and to use in class. They’re the larger size mentioned in
the handout, and will be available after the term’s over. (Mid
November) They’ll be (gently) used, so let’s figure $75 each plus
shipping to wherever, if anybody’s interested. (I’ve got 6-8,
depending on how many my students gobble up first.) Contact me
directly if you want one. I also have some delrin bay stakes
available for $50 (+sh). Handout on how to make those coming next.
Regards,
Brian Meek.
I had a local metal shop make 3 steel stakes for me. The cost was
nominal. You just need to give them a pattern to follow and the size
of rod to taper. I had to polish it up, but it saved me big bucks
and was well worth it. I also had a friend lathe out delrin stakes.
The rods are $5-15. If you don’t have anyone with a lathe, try sheets
of delrin and cut out the profiles yourself. Delrin is easy to saw,
file and sand.
Hope that helps! Debbie
Debbie Fehrenbach
Fehrenbach Jewelry
Does anyone know of a way to make a home made *Sinusoidal Stake ? Or perhaps use and existing item ?
take a wooden board of needed thickness and make groves. give groves
spherical shape and enjoy.
Leonid Surpin
Does anyone know of a way to make a home made *Sinusoidal Stake ? Or perhaps use and existing item ?
At auto supply shops, Harbor freight, or similar places to get
various tools (even Sears), you can find “drift punches”. These
things amount to various sizes of tapered steel rods. Not only do
they make inexpensive bezel mandrels, but get out a decently sized
torch (welding torch or larger soldering torch, not your micro sized
jewelry torch) and simply heat it at appropriate intervals, bending
it, then moving over a bit, doing it again in the other direction,
etc, until you’ve got your desired stake shape. Then get to work
sanding/finishing off the oxidation from bending, and you’ve got it.
Not hard to do, but takes some time, which is why the commercially
made ones cost “some money”…
For the various styles of plastic ones, get some scrap delrin, and
start carving…
Peter Rowe
I made some from taking a tailors wooden ‘ham’ and slicing it in
half *from 4" to 2" on the long side, and then cutting the halves in
two after I drilled large holes with a wood bit with teeth, the kind
you drill holes in framing inside walls with to feed wire through. I
used large to small bits, so that some of the dips are wider and
deeper, up to the end is smaller and narrower.
When it gets lighter out I’ll take photos and put them up. It took
about 15 min, and I was able to use these in class.
Regards,
Dinah
take a wooden board of needed thickness and make groves. give groves spherical shape and enjoy.
After reading an absolute tour de force on sinusoidal stakes making
from Brian, I am withdrawing my recommendations.
Leonid Surpin
In the book metal technic, Michael Good gives a pattern for making a
stake with plastic. I have made them with polypropolene, which is a
durable plastic. You need access to a drillpress with many size of
drill bits and a band saw. It is easier to make 2 at a time when
drilling holes then cut in half.
Hope I am not being redundant, but could not find the original
posts.
Melissa
Thanks to all on the sinusoidal stake “how to” I should be up and
running in no time now 
Brett Garrett
www.brettgarrettstudios.com
I just Have to put a plug in here for Brian Meek here. He teaches at
Wake studio In Santa Barbra. You can download a His How to make a
sinusoidal stake Pdf from the student handout archive here
Prowl around his website. lots of great interesting info. Check out
the interview with him by Whaley Studios on blogtalkradio.
Just a Fan,
Mike Edwards
Brian,
Thanks so much for sharing this handout. It is very well written and
nicely illustrated.
After reading it, I rushed to Sears an purchased the recommended
punches and in a couple of hours had three new stakes for a total
cost of only $24!!
Here are a couple of things that I discovered. The paint on the
alignment punched can be removed in about 20 seconds using extra
strength pain stripper followed by a cleanup with paint thinner.
I used an oxy/propane setup with a Meco Midget torch as the heat
source. I used a rosebud tip, as recommended, for the larger stake.
For the smaller stakes, I used a smaller #4 tip which allowed for a
more precise concentration of the heat and accurate bends.
Thanks gain.
Richard Simonite
Hi Richard,
I’m glad you liked it. It’s been generating a lot of activity on the
server, so I hope people are finding it useful.
I hadn’t thought about paint thinner. The sandblaster was handy, so
that was as far as I got. I’ll see if there’s room to add that into
the next revision.
Regards,
Brian.
Question: after forming, do you harden and temper the stake? If so,
to what color do you temper it?
Thanks.
Emie Stewart
Hi Emie.
Question: after forming, do you harden and temper the stake? If so, to what color do you temper it?
In a word, no. Don’t harden or temper them. They’re tool steel, but
exactly which tool steel is an unknown, and may well change from
batch to batch. (I’ve done a fair number of them. Every so often,
one out of a batch will react in ways that are noticeably different
than the rest.) If you just let them air cool, they test out to about
RC-25, which isn’t incredibly hard, but it’s lots harder than
silver. The thing about hardening them is (A) you don’t know for sure
what the steel is, so you don’t know exactly what it needs to harden
properly, and (B) if you foul it up, you could end up with a stake
that shatters on you at some random point. Having a softer stake
means it’ll bend rather than shattering. In my book, bent beats
shattered any day. (If you bend one of those stakes, you’re hitting
too hard. Ease off.)
Regards,
Brian Meek.