Reticulation on a formed surface

Peter, I also looked at Leonid’s picture and thought I somehow
looked at the wrong image. I would not consider that reticulation; but
I’m old school maybe things have changed.

In Allan’s class we used depletion gilding on 14Ky as you describe
it. The entire surface was effected.

KPK

I still have a piece of gold that I reticulated in a class taught by
Alan Revere decades ago.

I’m off to do a show tomorrow but when I return if I can find it
I’ll take a picture.

I was very taken with the result, but that was then. This not meant
to dispute anything you say. Just info; reticulation is not something
I do as part of my work.

KPK

Fusing the edge does not guaranty design conformance. Since, one
must account for shrinkage, the strips cut with allowance. So to be
precise, it is probably a hybrid of both technics. 

It’s simple enough to describe whether it’s traditional reticulation
or not. In forming that organic edge shape to specs, does the edge
actually melt at the surface, or are you treating the metal so that
the surface layer does NOT melt, and metal movement is under the
surface, which then gets pulled along by the molten metal underneath.
If the answer to this is yes, then what you were doing is indeed
reticulation. If the surface itself melts, then the final shape is
the result of normal melting behavior, including the surface tension
of the liquid metal. You’re right, of course, that in doing
reticulation, it’s possible to get some shaping via reticulation
while other areas at least partially melt at the surface and are
better described as simply melting. Normally, in reticulation work,
one tries to prevent that from happening, since when the surface
melts, the resulting surface textures are not as interesting. I’m
not sure there’s really a middle ground where what happens is a
combination of the two in the same location. And with that bracelet,
as I said, the surfaces do not seem to have the sorts of textures
that are characteristic of a reticulated surface. However, many gold
alloys, when you go to fuse or melt them, go through a slushy or
pasty phase where the metal is starting to melt, but not fully
liquid. At that point, while it pulls into itself, starting to ball
up or melt, it’s moving slowly, and with good torch control and not
too large a torch, controlling how much to let it deform is relativly
achievable.

It would have been interesting to watch you make these pieces.
Normal reticulation methods are not exactly highly controllable, with
part of the appeal being the accidental nature of the generated
patterns. Personally, I’ve found fusing of edges to get an organic
shape to be fairly well controllable in gold, especially higher karat
like 18K. But it’s not totally fool proof. And the precision you
describe in manufacturing these is not a simple thing I think. So it
would have been interesting to watch you get that repeatability in
the result. As always, it’s fun to watch an accomplished craftman at
work. No matter how many years or decades I do metals and jewelry
work, there are always things left to learn, and watching a fine
craftman often shows me things, maybe just minor tweaks to a
technique, but things I hadn’t realized I didn’t know before…

Peter Rowe

Since the topic is reticulation, let me add that nickel-silver (which
is basically a nickel brass) reticulates very well, with no prior
preparation except cleaning necessary.

Judy Bjorkman

I am puzzled about Leonid’s picture of reticulation. It looks like
the edges of the pieces had been overheated so that they curled
back. This is very very different from the kinds of reticulation I
have seen and done, which covers the entire piece.

Alma

It's simple enough to describe whether it's traditional
reticulation or not. In forming that organic edge shape to specs,
does the edge actually melt at the surface, or are you treating the
metal so that the surface layer does NOT melt, and metal movement
is under the surface, which then gets pulled along by the molten
metal underneath. If the answer to this is yes, then what you were
doing is indeed reticulation. 

May be I should call it melticulation.

When we got design in the shop, the problem was not how to make it,
but how to reproduce multiple copies. If one of the invocations of
the design is significantly different, here goes copyrights out of
the window. We tried a few techniques. Fusing accidentally does not
work in this case. With fusing some of the bead forms on the
underside. If you leave it there, it would be uncomfortable to where;
if you file it off, a porosity can be open, which needs to be closed.
But the biggest problem is to control the shape. When bead starts in
the beginning of a strip, control is not a problem, but when torch
moves down the strip, due to temperature build up, the end almost
collapsing.

We had patterns for every strip shape, which were 5% wider then
required. Flame was concentrated some distance from edge, so to be
technically precise, the bead on the inside was formed due to
reticulation effect, while outside was due to melting and shrinkage.
So not to offend sensibilities of the reticulation purists, I a will
be calling it melticulation.

The larger point is that control over the final shape was due to
reticulation approach, rather then fusing.

leonid surpin

I find it hard to believe that you have had problems researching
reticulation. I dida project several years ago on surface textures
and had no problems whatsoever. And I wasn't even a member of
Ganoksin then! 

hi- this isn’t “my” thread but it could have been- I was enchanted by
the reticulated textures I saw in a few pieces my teacher had in the
class I did last term. Looking in all my books I found basically the
same few paragraphs explaining the basics. Searching online I found
really only the article in the Ganoksin library. So, I’m glad the
question was asked and all the answers and discuission and images
have been fantastic. I’m not a lazy researcher at all but I had not
found a lot of either.

Hope
NSW AU

May be I should call it melticulation. 

It’s been said that jewelry making consists of a few basic
principals and techniques, and then thousands of tricks and personal
variations on those.

Perhaps it’s fair to simply say that you did the work the way it
worked best for you, and not worry about whether what was happening
fit one defined label or another. The important point isn’t the name
of the technique, unless one is trying to write a book about it or
teach it. What’s important are the results, and in the case of that
bracelet, you worked out what you had to do in order to get the
proper results.

Maybe we should call it Leonidticulation? It was your method. It
worked for you. That’s all that reall matters, isn’t it.

Peter

Reticulation was brought to this country from Russia by the famed
Finnishmetalsmith Heikki Seppa in 1960, according to an article on
reticulation he wrote in the book “Metals Technic”. The article
contains an excellent description of the technique as well as a
brief history. Contrary to a statement by someone earlier in this
thread Seppa states reticulation can be done in 14k and 18k gold as
well as silver. The book, “Metals Technic” by the way was edited by
Tim McCreight and contains a collection of metalsmith techniques and
is well worth having.

Jerry in Kodiak

Initially, when I first took a class on Reticulation, the metal was
ordered from a catalog, and of course at least one week class was
spent simply talking about it and waiting for delivery. That, then
was the traditional long way to do it, repeated heating, long
pickling time and many repeats of the same.

When I switched to Jay Whaley as my instructor, I discussed it with
him, and he said, “why not alloy your own?” So, one fine silver
coin, plus 20% volume of scrap copper, heat and pour into an ingot,
then roll out to proper gauge. Next place the material on a Solderite
Board, available from most catalog companies, because the Solderite
Board so reflects the heat, it makes the actions of the torch on the
sheet, so much more effective. I have never looked back, and alloy
my own material whenever the muse visits me.

Easy, quick and no waiting for delivery. Far less expensive as well.

Hugs,
Terrie

Reticulation was brought to this country from Russia by the famed
Finnishmetalsmith Heikki Seppa in 1960, according to an article on
reticulation he wrote in the book "Metals Technic". 

Oppi Untract wrote Jewelry Concepts and Technology and is a big,
heavy book (my bible) with the most complete descriptions of every
technique, process, tool, tool use, chemicals, their uses, alloy
formulas, enameling, and pictures of jewelry that demonstrates the
techniques for a visual reference.

If you look up reticulation and read the process described, it tell
how to reticulate 80-20 silver and shows samples. One piece is a old
and silver brooch by Harold O’Connor. I think it shows the results of
both gold and silver reticulation, and the silver the most dramatic
pattern development.

From Charles Lewton Brain: (His books are for sale on the Orchid
(Ganoksin) website,

For gold you will need to heat and pickle as well to create the
different melting temperature shell but I think you will find
your results are never as lovely as with reticulation silver. You
can also reticulate brass with practice and a friend of mine
(Judith Speelman) does this with a mini-torch and leaves portions
of the sheet smooth to better contrast with the textured areas. 

This brings me to my advice for obtaining reticulated gold
surfaces: practice first with silver reticulation alloy, count on
only some portions of the sheet being good, then when you do get a
particularly lovely area or reticulation saw it out, rubber mold
it, inject wax and then cast your 14k into that shape. You just
got a repeatable component too by doing this.

My experience is that besides a repeatable component, using silver
gives the most dramatic pattern, and that’s what I personally like.
Some reticulation looks like the surface of a bowl of oatmeal, and
you can call it reticulation, but it don’t float my boat…

Richard Hart G.G.
Denver, Co.

For gold you will need to heat and pickle as well to create the
different melting temperature shell 

When I experimented with reticulating gold, I used 14k yellow, and
alternated pickling with soaking in nitric acid on the basis that
yellow gold containg silver as well as copper. It occurs to me now
that this may not have helped, as the silver does not rise to the
surface the way copper does, but the results were very nice, though
very limited in size because of my worries about wasting gold.

Was I wasting effort trying to remove silver too?

Noel

I recently took a fantastic class taught by Harold O’Connor, where
silver reticulation was one of the many things he shared. He did
mention that for the most dramatic and controlled results, a finer
flame is required - (we used propane/oxy and Little Torch). Sort of
off topic, but his reticulation work is so beautiful!.. If you can
catch one of his classes, definitely do so!

Jennifer Dewey

Peter,

As I said, the key difference here is that in true reticulation
(at least as most of us define it), the surface of the metal
specifically does not melt, while the interior of the sheet does,
pulling and distorting the floating unmelted outer skin into
interesting textures. 

From experience, what I see when I reticulate silver (800 & 925),
after depletion gilding 3-6 times, is that the fine silver surface
becomes liquidus, not the copper in the alloy. When the copper goes,
the whole thing becomes a hole or puddle of muck. To me, it’s
understandable since the melting point of silver is lower than that
of copper. I would love to see Paulette Myers join in on this thread.
She’s the master of reticulation and have seen her reticulate brass,
as well. Her reticulation is amazing. I think the workhorse copper in
the alloy is what makes it all happen.

Kay Taylor

Kay,

From experience, what I see when I reticulate silver (800 & 925),
after depletion gilding 3-6 times, is that the fine silver surface
becomes liquidus, not the copper in the alloy. When the copper
goes, the whole thing becomes a hole or puddle of muck. To me, it's
understandable since the melting point of silver is lower than
that of copper. 

The whole reason that you can reticulate silver copper alloys is that
the silver copper alloy melts at a lower temperature than the fine
silver surface. Whether it is sterling or coin silver the alloy has a
lower melting point than the fine silver. By depleting the alloy of
its copper by repeated heating, brushing and pickling you create this
fine silver surface by dissolving the copper oxide in the pickle.
When heating the processed sheet to above the melting temperature of
the alloy but below the MP of the fine silver you in essence creates
a thin fine silver bag holding the liquid alloy in place. The
pressure of the torch flame pushes the liquid around in its fine
silver bag and you get the interesting textures of reticulation.

Jim