Nathan T. Logsdon
www.themetalsmith.com
Yeah, I ought to be close to havin it mastered after this butwe'll just have to wait and see. I planned to have the leave water cut. BTW the pattern I picked is the first one in Metzger's Pattern Book which is just friggin' amazing! Anyhose, that particular pattern doesn't give much detail in as far as what goes down and what comes up-especially near the tip. As to the money, is it ever enough? I think I'll do okay if I can produce ten to fifteen a day once the intial twenty failures are done. Speaking of which, what range does forge work get typically in your area?

Ya I just checked.

Them Texas Miles they add up.

Wendel is a great resource on acanthus leaves and all sorts of stuff like that. He is in Smithville about 400 mi west of ya.

8 of us once got together and hired him to come up and teach a class.

  Above is a photo of Wendel holding the demo acanthus leaf freshly riveted to a scroll. It still needed to have the rivets and seams chased and filed smooth.

Here are some of the tools we used and my student projects.

In the following photo, hammers 1 and 2 were used to sink the raised parts, hammer 3 was used to planish the raised surfaces smooth. The square end is convex and the round end very slightly concave. Most of the forming was done with hammer #4. A cross peen with a 3/32 radius end (3/16 end width, here again we had to tune Nathan's hammer. The radius was ground down from 1/8" (Other than those two minor tunings Nathan's hammers were great.)) One end of this hammer was almost straight across and the other had a slight arc in the face maybe 4-5 inch radius side to side the peen radius is the same. Hammer # 5 is my copy of the hammer Wendel calls "Sweetie." (I guess I'm lucky: When Wendel used it to show me what I was doing wrong, after a couple blows his face lit up and he said, "Hey, this is a nice one!" The flip side is of course, I can't blame my mistakes on my tools.) Sweetie is used for making fine lines and delineating subtle changes.
The planishing stakes were ball bearings welded onto bar stock. We used mostly 3/8 and 5/8 dia balls. We also used a narrow rectangular stake 1/4 by 5/8 and another about 5/8 x 3/4. These were like tiny anvils, polished flat tops with broken edges. These last were used to square the mating surfaces where the acanthus leaf would meet the scroll.

Allmost all the forming was done over stakes similar to the one in the center of the photo that looks like a dull chisel. The varients had offsets to get inside of the parts, some were narrower than others.

Some of the best money I've spent.

Wendel allowed and I fully believe that working the metal hot with thicker gauges is best served by practicing hammer control on some of this thin stuff for a few days.

Gene Olson Sculptor Elk River, MN

Nathan T. Logsdon
www.themetalsmith.com
Hey y'all I really appreciate the help. Gene- I have talked with you a couple of times on another forum (MM) and in fact that is where I first came across the post for Wendell's work. At that point, I knew I had to learn this. I have started making hammers for this work by reforging some atlas chipping hammers. So far that is working out great. I would love to take Wendell's class, but that will have to be later. As to die forming, I like the idea however if I am to use 18 gauge cr like I want to I think it may require more pressure than I have available in house right now. Little fish, big pond, lots to do.
Thanks again

WELL........now you've done it, Gene.
I spent ALL day yesterday playing with leaves. After seeing your hammers and stakes, I went out in the shop to find the leafin hammers I had. They were just roughed out so I had to finish them, mount to handles and make a stake. I love this "disease"........all it takes it for someone to show a photo and I lose track of a whole day......

Leafin' :): leaf blanks, hammers, etc...

Gene,

Those hammers shown in the photo - are they from Nathan Robertson? They sure look like it. I need to get him to make me a set, right after he finishes the one he's supposed to be doing for me now. He sure makes fine hammers at a great price!

>Gene,
>
>Those hammers shown in the photo - are they from Nathan Robertson?
>

Yes sir,
all except the little peddinghaus double round end one.

Gene Olson
Sculptor
Elk River, MN

Nathan sure does make sweet hammers, doesn't he? I hope he hurries up and finishes the one he's making for me now. Probably not soon though, since he's so busy.

If you are using copper or brass for the leaf part and you have them cut out, would using a hydroclic press for basic forming save time and your arm?

marilyn

Marilyn,

It odesn't matter if you're using copper, brass or steel. At 18 gauge thickness, or thereabouts, they all work enough alike not to matter.

A hydraulic press with embossing dies working into a urethane block can really speed up the gross forming, and some of the detial as well. But that only gets you started, in my opinion. It is the fine details that result from hand work that make each leaf different and interesting, as well as fitting the design. Otherwise, you might as well just buy them from King Architectural.

Nathan T. Logsdon
I agree Rick on all accounts. I am not opposed to forming in a press, but I don't have one. The hand made element if only in finishing is of utmost to me and with regards to King- I'll use some of their products, but not this or scrolls. Just can't see doin' that. One question about the hydraulic approach. Would die forming the veins and some of the gores drastically limit the ability to manipulate the final fit-up? Whatcha think?

Nathan,

I think there are a couple of factors that will affect how much the veining and gores will limit your ability to fudge things around on final fit-up. One is the gauge of the stock; the heavier it is, the more rigidity that you'll get from the creasing at the veins and the depth of the gores. The other is how deep those effects are; the deeper they are, the more you have created a triangular cross section, yielding a form more resistant to moving in an opposing direction. I hope that makes sense. (grin)

I expect that, if I were in your situation of no hydraullic press or flypress, I'd think about making a jig to align a punch and die set for running the veins, and another for ceasing the gores. Maybe even one for roughing in the contours in the domed areas of the leaves. These can be nothing fancier than a square-shanked punch in a piece of square tubing, aligned over a creasing plate or sinking plate, as appropriate. If you set up your patterns for the plasma cut blanks so that you have say, five sizes of a given blank pattern, you can probably hit a fairly comfortable middle ground on your punch/die sets that will allow you to do 90% of the gross forming with just one set per effect.

Doing it that way, you could rough-form and crease/vein a hundred-plus leaves in pretty short order, maybe a day or two. A few more days should get the tweaking and individualizing (is that a word?) done, and you're ready for fit-up and attachment. You'll have some hefty forearms by then, I'd bet. (grin)

If my written explanation is confusing, let me know and I'll try to come up with a sketch or two that might make it more clear.

Rich