I finally bended my second Ti bracelet [photo]

Arnaud Van Tilburgh

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I have already showed this when it was flat, but as it is that wide it was quite hard to make a good photo.
Now that it is bended, it really has come to live even on a photo and shows the coloured background better.

arnaud






 
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Arnaud Van Tilburgh

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Thanks Horse, Evgeni, Ed, mrthe, Carol and Frank.

Thing is that I started this design over 6 months ago and the same for the main cuts. Then I left it aside because too much time consuming and the fact that my skills on both design and cutting progressed. But like I always tell my students, always finish what you started the best you can. That way you learn the most.
So I had to finish this one, it is not ordered, just to have a recent work that represents my actual skills on engraving and design.

Frank, the dancing chicken refers to my friend Chris DeCamillis, sometimes I own him a chicken, sometimes he own me one. Just a never ending joke.

arnaud
 

rod

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Arnaud,

This is a very handsome result, and the coloured background really makes it 'pop'. You have earned your right to feel good about this, and I think many of us appreciate the public way you have interacted in refining your designs.

Remind me, you have talked about sand blasting, are you doing background relief by masking and sand blasting? If so, I would like to know more of your technique? Thank you!

Rod
 

Arnaud Van Tilburgh

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Thanks Jesse

Rod, indeed my attitude helped a lot to obtain the most and best feedback from great teacher here in the café, while I was studding both design and cutting.
I never had a class, only one hour with Chris DeCamillis in my shop while he was in Antwerp for a one week course at Alexander Sidorov School for GRS.

About the sandblasting, I’m still refining this technique, in case of this bracelet, I didn’t mask anything. After the background was removed and before starting shading, I sandblasted the whole upper side. It is a simple homemade sandblasting system that doesn’t use high pressure air.
But what it does is adding an equal and fine texture. And it can look black like it was stippled.
After sandblasting I coloured the whole bracelet.

For the next step I used sandpaper and water to remove Ti oxidation and the sandblasting texture on the upper level.
Then it was time for the shading lines.

But before doing it the way I describe now, I had all kind of other ideas haw to mask the cuts and upper level. I use one of those techniques to mask engraved flowers before anodizing the negative space, and then after removing the mask, anodizing on a lower current for a different colour.

But I think there must be a easy way to mask the upper level for both sandblasting or aboding. And even when you use a beading tool on the background, using sandblasting would make it pop even more.

And you know, there are some mini sandblasters that look like an airbrush.

Take a look

arnaud


[video=youtube;anVXNT29178]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anVXNT29178[/video]
 

rod

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Arnaud,

Thank you! That was a detailed post you wrote, and I see your approach has some similarity, in principle only, to my gilding approach, much faster than masking, is to sand blast the whole piece as you do, then colour and finally sand the top positive space to remove both colour and texture back to polished smooth metal.... excellent! I do have a small dentist's sand blaster, and supplies of the more aggressive alum oxide grit also the gentler mat finish of the glass bead grit. Glass bead blast and then flare cut makes a nice contrast.

In my gilding approach, again, I gild the whole piece, afterwards sand the upper negative space surface back to silver, to get some 'pop' and contrast. I may be fooling myself, but with the gilded flare cuts, I can imaging the design floating in space, see a small section of a work in progress below? Notice, I need to do a bit more sanding to remove some of the remaining nickel and gold. Tip: it can be difficult to see if all gold is removed from the surface, as the result is very shiny, so I photograph, and then increase the "yellow" saturation in Photoshop to exaggerate the gold, and this will show any last sign of gold on the surface that must be sanded more.

At first, I thought that you used sand blasting to achieve your deep relief, as Ken Hunt and also Barry L H have done with the metal etch approach that requires masking, yet is very effective, and as illustrated by Barry some time back on the Lindsay forum. So, am I correct that you have laboriously cut your deep relief by the usual methods of either small flats, rounds, or high speed dental handpiece. Whatever the approach, the final result looks very nice, well done!

Rod
 

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Arnaud Van Tilburgh

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Rod, mainlines are cut with a 105° or110° Then on those parts where I had to remove the background, I used a 90° to cut deeper, making an almost vertical edge and leaving a wider cut. That cut helps to use a 0.4mm and 0.2mm round carbide bur to remove the background, as flat as I want it to be. Yes after that I could have hammered it even flatter, but I didn't this time.
But the sandblasting camouflages a lot. Like you said, it shows up without form, just like an undefined depth. The contrast with the rest makes it look even deeper.

arnaud
 

peteb

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Arnaud
I wonder while viewing your wonderful work, how you determine the overall length before bending? Isn't it easier to find a customer first and determine a wrist size than to make a large bracelet and then find a customer with a large wrist? Or is it useful to have this as a sample of your work?
 

Paulie

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:tiphat:My sincere congratulations for the VERY beautiful bracelet you created, Arnaud:clapping: Prachtig gedaan:thumbsup::thumbsup:, groeten, Paul:beerchug:
 
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