My Cup Runith Over

If at first you don't succeed, try about 12 more times.

I finally got the mold to fill and a usable casting by feeding metal from
opposite sides of the lip.

My last attempt was to invert the mold and fill at the lip. It came very
close to working except at the side opposite the fill point. It took a
while to figure out how to fill two points at the same time with the core
in the way but I finally got it together.

A pic is at http://schmidling.netfirms.com/cup3.jpg

Thanks to all for the suggestions and ideas.

Now the next question.....

If I can raise a cup from a piece of sheet metal, surely I can improve on
this one with similar techniques.

First of all, the cup is too small for a wine glass as is. As the walls are
about 1/8" thick or more, I presume that I could make a larger cup out of
this by judicious pounding.

The cup is about 2.25" high and 2.75" across at the flaired lip.

Could someone give me an idea of how much I could increase the volume this
way? It currently holds 4 oz to the brim. It would be nice to increase
this to around 6. Is this possible?

It is fine silver, BTW.

One other question... you will note what looks like a crack on the outside
bottom. I don't think it is a real crack but rather where the metal met
from the two sides. It is visible on the inside also but it seems to be
joined internally as I can see no light through it.

I am hoping this would respond to hammering and could be filled in that way.

Thoughts please,

js


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Jack Schmidling wrote:
If at first you don't succeed, try about 12 more times.

I finally got the mold to fill and a usable casting by feeding metal from
opposite sides of the lip.

My last attempt was to invert the mold and fill at the lip. It came very
close to working except at the side opposite the fill point. It took a
while to figure out how to fill two points at the same time with the core
in the way but I finally got it together.

A pic is at http://schmidling.netfirms.com/cup3.jpg

Thanks to all for the suggestions and ideas.

Now the next question.....

If I can raise a cup from a piece of sheet metal, surely I can improve on
this one with similar techniques.

First of all, the cup is too small for a wine glass as is. As the walls are
about 1/8" thick or more, I presume that I could make a larger cup out of
this by judicious pounding.

The cup is about 2.25" high and 2.75" across at the flaired lip.

Could someone give me an idea of how much I could increase the volume this
way? It currently holds 4 oz to the brim. It would be nice to increase
this to around 6. Is this possible?

It is fine silver, BTW.

One other question... you will note what looks like a crack on the outside
bottom. I don't think it is a real crack but rather where the metal met
from the two sides. It is visible on the inside also but it seems to be
joined internally as I can see no light through it.

I am hoping this would respond to hammering and could be filled in that way.

Thoughts please,

js


Yes you could go down the enlarging route , assuming youve got the
required stakes and hammers ready.
it would be one of several options. the only suggestion id make is
turn it on your lathe first to remove any traces of the sand moulding.
you wouldnt want to hammer the sand into the cup.
the other option which you might find just easier is to turn up a
larger cup out of wood, use that as your pattern as youve mastered the
casting route with your 2 feeds to the mould.
Just another suggestion.
Just raising the temperature of the sand mould to say between 50 and
100'c will improve the casting dramatically. Bake in an oven overnight
and it weill have heated right through.

Also going back to the hammering. To get into the swing of it, cast a
cup in say pewter , turn up to clean up then experiment with that on
your steel stake and hammers. It will give you a good idea whats
involved before you start on the silver.
Hope this is of some help.

"Ted Frater"

Yes you could go down the enlarging route , assuming youve got the
required stakes and hammers ready....

We are working on that.

the only suggestion id make is
turn it on your lathe first to remove any traces of the sand moulding.
you wouldnt want to hammer the sand into the cup....

It's clean as a whistle, in many places a perfectly smooth finish.
Petrobond is funny stuff but the finish is sometimes surprisingly clean and
smooth, nearly a polish.

the other option which you might find just easier is to turn up a
larger cup out of wood, use that as your pattern as youve mastered the
casting route with your 2 feeds to the mould....

I have a larger cup that I started with but I hadn't resolved my melting
problems and could not fill the mold. I now have the furnace end under
control so I could melt enough to fill it but..... it's a quantum leap from
this one and not sure I am ready for more frustration yet.

Just another suggestion.
Just raising the temperature of the sand mould to say between 50 and
100'c will improve the casting dramatically. Bake in an oven overnight
and it weill have heated right through.

That's been suggested before but not at that temp range. The flask is wood
so that would be the limiting factor. If you think 100C would make a
difference, that would be easy enough to try.

Also going back to the hammering. To get into the swing of it, cast a
cup in say pewter , turn up to clean up then experiment with that on
your steel stake and hammers. It will give you a good idea whats
involved before you start on the silver.....

Too late... been banging away at what I can reach with my limited hammers
and "stakes". Just seems to be getting thinner and not larger but I can't
really get inside of it.

I did come up with a cute trick for the bottom. I turned a dome on a 1"
steel bar and put upright in the vice, sticking up higher than the depth of
the cup. I then used the cup as the hammer and forged the bottom into a
nice spherical surface.

Hope this is of some help.

Sure but how much can I stretch it this way?

Thanks,

js


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----- Original Message -----
From: "Jack Schmidling"
Newsgroups: rec.crafts.jewelry
Sent: Thursday, September 30, 2004 12:21 AM
Subject: My Cup Runith Over


If at first you don't succeed, try about 12 more times.

I finally got the mold to fill and a usable casting by feeding metal from
opposite sides of the lip.

My last attempt was to invert the mold and fill at the lip. It came very
close to working except at the side opposite the fill point. It took a
while to figure out how to fill two points at the same time with the core
in the way but I finally got it together.

A pic is at http://schmidling.netfirms.com/cup3.jpg

Thanks to all for the suggestions and ideas.

[Good persistence, Jack.]


Now the next question.....

If I can raise a cup from a piece of sheet metal, surely I can improve on
this one with similar techniques.

First of all, the cup is too small for a wine glass as is. As the walls
are
about 1/8" thick or more, I presume that I could make a larger cup out of
this by judicious pounding.

The cup is about 2.25" high and 2.75" across at the flaired lip.

Could someone give me an idea of how much I could increase the volume this
way? It currently holds 4 oz to the brim. It would be nice to increase
this to around 6. Is this possible?

It is fine silver, BTW.

[It's unlikely that you'll be able to enlarge it significantly before it
cracks. Cast metal is less ductile than sheet; it has to do with the way it
crystallizes as it cools. I've tried casting fine silver, and it was
significantly more brittle than sterling. There may be a heat-treatment
routine you can put it through that will help - perhaps the silversmiths
association will be able to provide more info on that:
http://www.silversmithing.com/ . Most likely, though, they'll tell you what
everyone else has - start with sheet silver.]


One other question... you will note what looks like a crack on the outside
bottom. I don't think it is a real crack but rather where the metal met
from the two sides. It is visible on the inside also but it seems to be
joined internally as I can see no light through it.

I am hoping this would respond to hammering and could be filled in that
way.

[Wouldn't that be nice? But I'm afraid that in the real world, that crack
will just get bigger as you hammer on it...]

Andrew Werby
www.unitedartworks.com




Thoughts please,

js


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"Andrew Werby"

I've tried casting fine silver, and it was
significantly more brittle than sterling.

I thought it was just the opposite.

There may be a heat-treatment
routine you can put it through that will help

I have annealed it twice now and other then THE crack, the surface improved
quit a bit. All the pits and warts are gone.

[Wouldn't that be nice? But I'm afraid that in the real world, that crack
will just get bigger as you hammer on it...]

Actually, it came and went depending on where and how I hammered but it did
not take long before I could see daylight through it. I could sort of close
it up at will and I left it this way when I finished hammering. I then
fluxed both sides, heated it up and worked hard solder into it. It is now
totally invisible.

After spending a good deal of time hammering it, it just seemed to get
thinner and changed shape a bit but the volume did not increase in any
measurable way.

It's about done no so next is to work on the base and stem.

js


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Jack Schmidling wrote:
"Ted Frater"


Yes you could go down the enlarging route , assuming youve got the
required stakes and hammers ready....


We are working on that.


the only suggestion id make is
turn it on your lathe first to remove any traces of the sand moulding.
you wouldnt want to hammer the sand into the cup....


It's clean as a whistle, in many places a perfectly smooth finish.
Petrobond is funny stuff but the finish is sometimes surprisingly clean and
smooth, nearly a polish.


the other option which you might find just easier is to turn up a
larger cup out of wood, use that as your pattern as youve mastered the
casting route with your 2 feeds to the mould....


I have a larger cup that I started with but I hadn't resolved my melting
problems and could not fill the mold. I now have the furnace end under
control so I could melt enough to fill it but..... it's a quantum leap from
this one and not sure I am ready for more frustration yet.


Just another suggestion.
Just raising the temperature of the sand mould to say between 50 and
100'c will improve the casting dramatically. Bake in an oven overnight
and it weill have heated right through.


That's been suggested before but not at that temp range. The flask is wood
so that would be the limiting factor. If you think 100C would make a
difference, that would be easy enough to try.


Also going back to the hammering. To get into the swing of it, cast a
cup in say pewter , turn up to clean up then experiment with that on
your steel stake and hammers. It will give you a good idea whats
involved before you start on the silver.....


Too late... been banging away at what I can reach with my limited hammers
and "stakes". Just seems to be getting thinner and not larger but I can't
really get inside of it.

I did come up with a cute trick for the bottom. I turned a dome on a 1"
steel bar and put upright in the vice, sticking up higher than the depth of
the cup. I then used the cup as the hammer and forged the bottom into a
nice spherical surface.


Hope this is of some help.


Sure but how much can I stretch it this way?

Thanks,

js


Re your last question.
Lets start at the beginning.
fine silver and fine gold will thin down to less than 1/1000 in. Take
your aluminium baking foil thats rolled down to that thickness.
Gold and silver foils are rolled too. then to make gold leaf for
guilding this foil is placed between rawhide sheets and hammered in a
stack of them this reduces the foil to 1/10 of the 1/1000 and even a lot
less if you want it to.
so your cup can be doubled in size = 4 times the volume approx by
thinning it to a 1/16th in.
Do try it out on a piece of say copper pipe over a steel mandrel in your
vice to get some idea of how much hammering you need to double the dia
of the copper pipe.
Talking of vices an engineers vice is not the one to do hammering on.
you need to look out for a proper smiths vice. we call them leg vices as
they clamp/bolt onto a stump or very heavy bench and have a long leg
that touches the ground withg a log or big stone set in the ground.
these are not steel or cast iron but Wrought iron can weigh up to 60lbs
and are designed for hammering on , with of course a stake set in the
jaws. you might just find one. Its a silversmiths 3rd hand. A MUST in
your type of work.
Always run trials of any techjnique your considering before taking on
the expensive material.
Also dont be afraid of hitting it!. The more rigid support the better
the result and the less tiring the hammering.
Report back how you get on with the copper pipe.

On Fri, 01 Oct 2004 08:21:41 -0700, in hõ Ted Frater wrote:

Talking of vices an engineers vice is not the one to do hammering on.
you need to look out for a proper smiths vice. we call them leg vices as
they clamp/bolt onto a stump or very heavy bench and have a long leg
that touches the ground withg a log or big stone set in the ground.
these are not steel or cast iron but Wrought iron can weigh up to 60lbs
and are designed for hammering on , with of course a stake set in the
jaws. you might just find one. Its a silversmiths 3rd hand. A MUST in
your type of work.

Ted,

While I'll easily agree that the leg vices are nice, and superior for heavy
hammering, I'd point out that at least here in the U.S. they are not at all common.
You see them in the shops of those artists who are working as blacksmiths, but not
too commonly elsewhere. Perhaps on the east coast, with it's slightly longer history
(still just a drop in the bucket, compared to your part of the world) , old used ones
might be easier to find, but in many parts of the U.S., they'll be virtually unknown.
So most of us do indeed use the heaviest old machinists vise we can find. If mounted
on something good and sturdy, they're quite good enough. People who do a lot of
smithing, of course, often have larger, permanently mounted stakes for the heavy
work, or use the slip in type of stake holders, rather than a vise, but a good heavy
vise (which can also easily weigh quite a lot) is a pretty sturdy thing for work on a
smaller scale then blacksmiths, or you, for that matter, commonly do.

cheers

Peter

"Ted Frater" wrote in message
...

Talking of vices an engineers vice is not the one to do hammering on.
you need to look out for a proper smiths vice. we call them leg vices as
they clamp/bolt onto a stump or very heavy bench and have a long leg
that touches the ground withg a log or big stone set in the ground.
these are not steel or cast iron but Wrought iron can weigh up to 60lbs
and are designed for hammering on , with of course a stake set in the
jaws. you might just find one. Its a silversmiths 3rd hand. A MUST in
your type of work.

I tend to disagree.

I find that the stake set into a block of green oak and mounted rigidly on a
heavy work bench is quite adequate.

However leg vices aren't hard to get and don't cost that much.

--
William Black
------------------
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords
is no basis for a system of government

"Ted Frater"

Do try it out on a piece of say copper pipe over a steel mandrel in your
vice to get some idea of how much hammering you need to double the dia
of the copper pipe....

I got the idea and don't like it much. Hammering thinned it out and made it
much tougher but I decided I like the size as it... ha ha.

Talking of vices an engineers vice is not the one to do hammering on.
you need to look out for a proper smiths vice.

I have a very large one probably over 50 lbs but it is mounted on a higher
than normal work bench as I didn't have swinging big hammers in mind when I
mounted it.

I will get another one and put it on a tree stump or some such thing if I
need to.

Report back how you get on with the copper pipe.

Don't hold your breath... I will try to cast a larger cup and move on to
raising as soon as I get the stuff together.

I cast the stem and base for this cup today and just started to clean it up.
This may be a small cup but Bush would consider it a WMD if weight meant
anything.

Thanks,

js


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Peter W.. Rowe, wrote:
On Fri, 01 Oct 2004 08:21:41 -0700, in h õ Ted Frater wrote:


Talking of vices an engineers vice is not the one to do hammering on.
you need to look out for a proper smiths vice. we call them leg vices as
they clamp/bolt onto a stump or very heavy bench and have a long leg
that touches the ground withg a log or big stone set in the ground.
these are not steel or cast iron but Wrought iron can weigh up to 60lbs
and are designed for hammering on , with of course a stake set in the
jaws. you might just find one. Its a silversmiths 3rd hand. A MUST in
your type of work.


Ted,

While I'll easily agree that the leg vices are nice, and superior for heavy
hammering, I'd point out that at least here in the U.S. they are not at all common.
You see them in the shops of those artists who are working as blacksmiths, but not
too commonly elsewhere. Perhaps on the east coast, with it's slightly longer history
(still just a drop in the bucket, compared to your part of the world) , old used ones
might be easier to find, but in many parts of the U.S., they'll be virtually unknown.
So most of us do indeed use the heaviest old machinists vise we can find. If mounted
on something good and sturdy, they're quite good enough. People who do a lot of
smithing, of course, often have larger, permanently mounted stakes for the heavy
work, or use the slip in type of stake holders, rather than a vise, but a good heavy
vise (which can also easily weigh quite a lot) is a pretty sturdy thing for work on a
smaller scale then blacksmiths, or you, for that matter, commonly do.

cheers

Peter,
Who knows Peter,
Jack might just be in the right place at the right time if he knows
what a leg vice is. and perhaps see one in a scrap yard and aquires it.
the reason I mention scrap yards is thats the place to get sheet copper
from discarded hot water tanks. this way it would be a lot cheaper than
buying new..
In the absence of finding one of course a good steel engineers vice is
no doubt just as good.
I guess im lucky here in the UK having collected these vices over the
past 20 years having about a dozen or so put by . ill never use them all
but say,if you or Jack were to visit and really wanted one well Id make
it a present. Not exactly hand luggage! on an airliner.
Its also interesting that altho I live miles out in the sticks, the
Birmingham jewellery quarter is about 5 hrs away and Ive been a regular
visitor there over the past 15 yrs.
thats where all the small as well as the large production jewellery
workshops are including still all the victorian drop stamping shops with
their the associated equipment.
Before i started going regularly, largely to have dies made, Ive had
all my hand year stamps made by my die makers since 1968 and they are
still using the 3d die sinking machines they used then.German made Deckel.
Very little has changed in the Jewellery quarter. in the last 100 years.
Ok coal gas and air has been replaced by propane or natural gas and air
on most brazing benches tho for some production work of gold wire
watch straps cracked ammonia tunnel kilns are in regular use.
Not seen a laser welder yet, will have to look into that, tho most of my
work is now on a much larger scale.
Ted.