Wire Inlay help
- Thread starter DanM
- Start date
More info,
I have serious doubts that push gravers would be the way to go but,
What is the article being made?
Is it fragile or will it bend easily?
How thick or how much mass does it have?
Is it a historical inspired piece that requires brass or could gold be used?
Can you use a steel that is a bit harder than mild steel?
Ray
I have serious doubts that push gravers would be the way to go but,
What is the article being made?
Is it fragile or will it bend easily?
How thick or how much mass does it have?
Is it a historical inspired piece that requires brass or could gold be used?
Can you use a steel that is a bit harder than mild steel?
Ray
The project is a mild steel tsuba 3/32nds thick. it is historically inspired and should have brass as the wire inlay. i am about a third of the way through the construction of the tsuba,the hard part is now the wire inlay being done with the tools i have availible. photos of where i am at right now and the original tsuba.
OK
I would use the softest alloy of brass you can get or make. You know a lot more about the Asian alloys than I do since you work with that style of work. I would suspect one of the softer alloys was used in the original.
If I were you I would be tempted to make a couple chisels and use a hammer to drive them since pushing will be a lot of work. Possible... but a lot of work especially as wide as the lines are. It is hard to tell from the photos but those look to be about .030 wide maybe a bit more. In that size range it is going to be hard to get proper undercuts with a push graver.
It might be worth experimenting with the technique of using a chisel perpendicular to the channel wall and pushing it up rather than actually cutting an undercut in the channels. I generally I don't like that technique but this is not a general inlay job. It may be the ticket for this. As hard as the brass is going to be it will not take much of a taper to the footing to keep it in place.
I would also think that proper wire size would be pretty critical on this. I am thinking the brass is going to want to work harden fairly rapidly so having the channel and wire properly matched in sized would be critical.
Definitely experiment on some scrap. This is one inlay I have not done before but I see no reason it can't be done. You may have to experiment a little to work the kinks out of the process.
Ray
I would use the softest alloy of brass you can get or make. You know a lot more about the Asian alloys than I do since you work with that style of work. I would suspect one of the softer alloys was used in the original.
If I were you I would be tempted to make a couple chisels and use a hammer to drive them since pushing will be a lot of work. Possible... but a lot of work especially as wide as the lines are. It is hard to tell from the photos but those look to be about .030 wide maybe a bit more. In that size range it is going to be hard to get proper undercuts with a push graver.
It might be worth experimenting with the technique of using a chisel perpendicular to the channel wall and pushing it up rather than actually cutting an undercut in the channels. I generally I don't like that technique but this is not a general inlay job. It may be the ticket for this. As hard as the brass is going to be it will not take much of a taper to the footing to keep it in place.
I would also think that proper wire size would be pretty critical on this. I am thinking the brass is going to want to work harden fairly rapidly so having the channel and wire properly matched in sized would be critical.
Definitely experiment on some scrap. This is one inlay I have not done before but I see no reason it can't be done. You may have to experiment a little to work the kinks out of the process.
Ray
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