Working with wrought iron
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Christmas is just around the corner. Maybe Santa will leave you one in your stocking.
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you have the hard part done which is drawing all those curves
see this sketchup for the rest:
that's all done with regular sketchup tools..
i would recommend one plugin for this stuff and it's called recurve.rb.. it has an option for you to select one of the line segments then it will select all the connecting segments to it and join them into one curve.
[edit] here's a link to recurve.rb:
http://forums.sketchucation.com/viewtopic.php?t=36822[edit2] just noticed your desired output has sharp ends instead of the square ones in my drawing.. i think you can figure that bit out yourself
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@unknownuser said:
Dave R wrote:
Once you get that wrought iron work down you can work on something like this:
And the way to make it for real:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=l1_tF67B9CA -
Cool! Thanks for that link. I made something similar in silver and in copper when I was in fine art school many moons ago. I used them for handles on some small vessels I made. It was fun to watch one being made in iron, though.
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That really was cool. So tell me, I assume the bar was made up of four bars, so how was it made "solid" except for the section that was twisted?
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It's welded together at the ends.
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@unknownuser said:
[edit2] just noticed your desired output has sharp ends instead of the square ones in my drawing.. i think you can figure that bit out yourself
Actually the scroll work on my model does need the square ends. The pointy ends just happened to be on the example I pulled from the warehouse.
Thanks for the skp file, it's so tempting to just use it (not that I would do anything like that
)but this weird model is gonna need a fair amount of this stuff so I just gotta buckle down and get it done. Probably the only time I'll ever need anything like this since I only work with car models, but what the hey. -
@dave r said:
It's welded together at the ends.
Oh. I was hoping there was some magical secret to it
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They're welded together by black dwarfs in underground caves.
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I second http://www.drawmetal.com/tapermaker since it is made specifically for this purpose by somebody who does it for real.
Best,
Jason. -
@hellnbak said:
That really was cool. So tell me, I assume the bar was made up of four bars, so how was it made "solid" except for the section that was twisted?
A traditional basket twist is made from one solid bar.
You first have to heat the section you want to twist and cut it into four sections using a chisel.
This takes quite a while and a lot of reheating. Then knock the four new bars back into place and then do the twist. -
@dave r said:
They're welded together by black dwarfs in underground caves.
Yippeeee!!! In Middle Earth, right?
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@box said:
A traditional basket twist is made from one solid bar.
You first have to heat the section you want to twist and cut it into four sections using a chisel.
This takes quite a while and a lot of reheating. Then knock the four new bars back into place and then do the twist.Wow, they actually did this? How the heck did they ever turn a profit?
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That's why you have apprentices, or badly paid slaves, I made too many of them to think about.
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@box said:
That's why you have apprentices, or badly paid slaves, I made too many of them to think about.
Just out of curiousity, about how long would it take to make one using that method?
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We used to knock one out in about half an hour, but that was many years ago now, very much doubt I'd still be able to make one.
I was in an old steam locomotive workshop so we had great forges and foot controlled pneumatic hammers which made life much easier.
Getting the heat right takes the most time, the actual metal work part is quite quick, as you have to work fast before it cools.I found a video for you of a guy making his first one.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X62dDh_9on0 -
@box said:
I found a video for you of a guy making his first one.
That video was great! I have the greatest respect for those that created such works of art using those methods. Nowadays I suppose they use "modern" methods to mass produce such items, but I'm also sure the result lacks the character and natural imperfections that made the originals so special. Just try to get a kid to learn a craft like that today -- he wouldn't understand it if it didn't involve microchips and a touchscreen.
Thanks again. -
Check this out: http://www.pbs.org/woodwrightsshop/video/3000/3013.html
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Thanks Dave. Funny you should point me to that particular episode, I caught it just a couple of weeks ago on PBS (I think). Well, I caught the last half of it, so now I was able to see what I missed. What really bothers me about that guy is how disorganized he is. His shop is always a total mess, can never find what he needs. But he seems to enjoy his work, so what the hey.
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