Second Concho

I had a couple loose hours this afternoon and made another concho. 1 1/4" argentium in 18 guage. I engraved it flat again becuase my engraving on a curved surface is killing me as it looks like a drunk monkey cut it. Need to find some small files to cut better string slots, as all of mine are way too large. Do they make chainsaw files in 1/8"? Anyway, let me know what you think, Seth

Seth, if you are working these flat your forming alinement is outstanding- your cutting is very good as well-Fred

Seth,
That is a really nice concho. How are you forming them? And how do you get it aligned so perfectly? Thanks for sharing with us.

Stewart

I form them in a hydralic press, using a peice of plexiglass and a quarter inch pad of red urethane. Jermiah Watt taught me how to use this stuff in his DVD. This is my variation on it. I drilled a hole in the plexiglass using a hole saw the size that I want the inside of the concho to be. Then I scribed a line on the plexi glass to mark the outside border of the concho, this will aid in alignment when you press it. Then, in this particular case, I cut out my concho, prepped, polished, and engraved it. After engraving, scotch tape was used to hold the disk to the plexiglass using my scribed line as a guide. I then set the quarter inch thick peice of urethane onto the top of this concho and pressed it. The press is one my father made about 20 years ago for forging damascus, and it is overkill for what I am doing, but it gets the job more than done. Before I got the new flat dies made for the press, I tried forming them in a large wilton vise using the same stuff and it worked fine. I just used a softer peice of urethane and a breaker bar to squish the concho, and all of this was inbetween two blocks of wood because the vise jaws are only an inch and a half by 4 inches. This was a week or two or so ago. I had to use the scotch tape because during setup the metal disk would fall out of the vise and onto the floor, and the scotch tape stayed when I tried it in the hydralic press. Around here, every farmer and rancher in the country has a hydralic press, so they are not hard to make or find parts for. The urethane came from Rio Grande. I hope this helps someone out, as I am very new to all of this, and my madness should be questioned. Seth

seth nicely done, I make alot of concho's like this and you got my mind working overtime. I think I will try engraving some before there dome. Thanks Joe

Seth Great Job!! now you need to do 8 or 10 more for a set lol. go to riogrand or IJS and find a cheap set of needle files they will work for your slots. I engrave all my conchos flat then dome them. With push gravers i have found its just way easier and i dont have as many @#$% ups to fix or holes in my hands to doctor lol.
Steve

I should clairify, scotch packing tape. And for an even better fit, this morning I epoxied a peice of copper to fit on top of the plexiglass so the disk can't move at all. Seth

Seth, you have an engraving style that is very appealing. I look fwd to seeing more.

Here is some pics of the newly glued on copper and the press. 5 minute epoxy. If you look close you can see the scribed line in the plexi to help with the centering of the copper. Seth