Pieces of the Tiara

I was playing with where to place the slits on the arrows for my tiara. 

Art Deco Tiara

I finally pieced it all together and the gas conveniently ran out just as I bent up the head band for the tiara

Hardy tool for tiara

JThis is how the hardy tool was used during the process in my earlier post. This picture is from spirit iron work, this took is being used on a mechanical hammer but the use of the tool is the same on an anvil it would jus for into the hardy hole. 

Tiara arrow heads

I Made a hardy tool to help me forge my arrow/leaf shapes for the tiara I will be making. I will revise my technique according to what I have seen on smithing websites. 

 I found a process picture which helped clear up my confusion as to how to form the point on the shape. 

Art Deco Tiara idea

After much back and forth between very Celtic looking curves and line I have finally come back to the repetitive and geometric shape that first caught my fancy. This is the idea I felt happy about, I like this shape It resembles an arrow head. I am battling to imagine the finished piece, so will start by forging out a few of these and let my hands do the thinking once I get started. It doesn't seem like scribbling is helping me right now. 

Art deco Design idea

There is an Art Deco design competition coming up and I am going to be making a piece(s) for it. I was a slightly bewildered at the thought of choosing what to actually manufacture, a ring or a neck piece, a bangle, all of these could be wrought from steel. Then as i searched and searched, firstly to try and get a grasp of what "Art Deco" was. My first thoughts were that it was only "geometric and square" but I kept seeing twirly curves and not only square shapes and lines. I made the obsevation that Art Deco design style comprises of geometric shaping but also bold lines and very often mirroring symmetry. SO my search continued and I searched everything from Art Deco wrought iron gates to graphic design patterns, on thing I saw pop up every so often was the ladies fro the twenties and their headbands they would wear with their outfits. Then I had a spark that started engine, LETS MAKE A TIARA! seeing as I'm not a huge fan of extremely geometric design, I began looking at tiaras. Tiaras from medival designs and that lead me to Elvish designs, which when examined do look like some of the of Art Deco wrought work I have seen. So I am strangely excitted to get busy on this, here are some of the tiaras I've seen.

Sasol new signature competition

The sasol new signitures competition, I was puzzled as to what to make, I finally thought while I am in the vein of trying pattern welding. I decided to forge a pattern welded plate, either way if it works or all falls apart or not even completely weld it's ok. It's a piece made by fire I would like to show it off. This is just the first weld and drawn out billet. 

Forge welding achieved

In my second attempt at forge welding, today I managed to achieve a forge weld. There are three things I did differently the second time around. First I tried a different steel, instead of the mystery stainless steel from the scrapyard I used GCR15 from the deep groove bearing steel I had. Then at a forging heat I lightly hammered the mini billet together to try and get the surfaces as close as possible before welding. At the heat is also when I applied the borax, from some trouble shooting on the internet. I can across Walter sorrels saying that if the billet is heated too high before applying borax, scale starts to form. So those were the three changes I made and it seemed to have been more effective in achieving a weld. Here is a small piece I hammered out I tried not to get over zealous and try forging massive on the first try.