Illuminated Tools (non-knife project)

lastbrunneng

lastbrunneng

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Mar 5, 2014
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As I near the end of art school I'm expected to become more independent and express my "voice." In that spirit I've been working on building completely functional but highly polished and decorated hand tools to honor the role of labor in our history. I'm calling it the Illuminated Tool series, after the medieval illuminated manuscripts.
The two tools I'm making this semester are a hammer and wrench.





Hopefully this isn't too of topic, I'm new here and new to knives so I thought I would show what I've been doing, and how I've been spending some of the wealth of knowledge I've found on this forum.

PS: how I feel when I tell people I'm in art school.
 
Since I've had a hard time finding high carbon steel in my area I used a local metal reseller for most of my steel. She had some nice new 4340 available in bars for $1.50/lb, so I cut that into coupons and tacked them together without any fill rod, and forge welded it into one block.



My first "forge" was a stack of fire bricks that I pointed my O/A torch into, I have since built a more respectable forge.



I built this small press to help with forging and forge welding, it uses a 20 ton air-over-hydraulic cylinder. It's a bit slow and I'll definitely build a better one when funds allow.





For the wrench I used a car coil spring, straightened and upset on one end. I used an air chisel to cut a slit in the upset, then opened it and wrapped it around a rod (sorry, no pics). Then I filed the open box by hand to fit a 3/4" bolt.





Then I forged a taper on the other end and cut 1/4"-20 threads, this is how the handle will be affixed.

 
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Now I'm working on all the fittings. The hammer will have a faux-ivory handle, carved to look like a Roman column, with cast bronze fittings and an onyx cabachon at the bottom. The wrench will have a cast bronze handle coveted with engraving.
I'm using green carving wax to make most of the pieces. I embedded small mandrels in blocks of wax, and set up a makeshift lathe by clamping a flex-shaft rotary tool in a vise, and using another one with a burr to carve the wax and used needle files to finish shaping them.







For a larger piece of wax I used a drill press and clamped the piece with a threaded rod, I did this again with a piece of faux-ivory.







The larger wax piece will be carved in the style of an ionic capital to top the column that is the hammer handle. I continue carving that piece with small burrs and needle files.

 
As a jeweler, I really like this project.

Good idea to make the handle in multiple pieces instead of one big fitting. It is a lot easier to re-done piece than the whole piece.

Remember to leave a little extra on the wax models to allow for shrinkage and finishing. I can't tell you how many times I have seen someone make a wax to the final dimensions and be heartbroken when the final piece was too small.
 
Thank you Stacy. I definitely know what you mean, in the studio where I work at least one person every semester makes knuckle dusters, and 90% of them end up grinding out the finger holes for an afternoon. I'm leaving extra material both in the wax and in the faux ivory, just in case.
 
Interesting stuff, cant wait to see more
 
So after some more carving in wax I was ready to cast.







I still need to cut the sprus off but these turned out great.

I used dykem and scribed a centerline and grind line on the wrench.



Here it is after rough grinding (on my anvil, a 135# chunk of rock-crusher jaw that I got for free at the salvage yard, the rebound is insane)





I still need a handle for the wrench so I put another piece of carving wax in the drill press and turned this:



This process can get pretty messy.



Finally, while grinding the hammer head I found a fairly devastating inclusion right in the middle of the billet.



I don't have the time or knowledge to attempt to fix it. In order to move forward with the project I pulled out one of my first smithing projects, a very rough hammer head that I tried to make into a tomahawk. I never really did anything more than put a pien on it so that's a happy coincidence.





More to come soon.
 
You have nothing to loose. Have a welder weld a bead right across that bad weld. After grinding, it may show a little, but it may not be all that bad. A mild steel rod should be fine for arc welding , or he can TIG it with a 4340 filler rod.
 
I seriously considered getting some rod and doing it myself, but I was under the gun and way over budget. Like so many things I'll pick that billet up at a later date.
The hammer head I already had cleaned up quite nicely after some dykem and a 60 grit belt (my first try with Norton's Norzon belts, they're pretty alright).





It was even the right size.



Things got sort of hot and heavy right around now and I didn't take any pictures, but basically I drilled and tapped holes at the center of each end of the faux ivory, and carved the top portion to fit into the hammer head. I cut my own brass threaded rod to go into the holes for attaching the fittings.



For the wrench I drilled a small pocket hole in the small faux ivory fitting that the end of thandrench fits into.



Unfortunately the handle I made couldn't be cast, the investment (mold) blew its lid in the kiln, pouring bronze in would have been pointless and dangerous.





So I made another one but it wasn't ready in time for my final critique.



I worked frantically for several days and made lots of progress but I still ended up showing only partially finished pieces.











The fit and finish on these, especially the hammer, is nowhere near where I want it, and neither handle is complete. The faux ivory handle still needs to be carved and polished and the wax needs to be cast in bronze. Also, the onyx in the hammer handle is held in with epoxy, I'm going to pull it back out and do a real bezel with gallery wire.
My class was very receptive to the concept and the tools as they are, and even more impressed by all the extra tools I built in the process. My professor offered an A for the semester on the condition I show her a finished product before August, to which I agreed. Once my summer class and comic expo season is over I'll be back on these to get them where I really want them.
 
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bladsmth said:
You have nothing to loose. Have a welder weld a bead right across that bad weld. After grinding, it may show a little, but it may not be all that bad. A mild steel rod should be fine for arc welding , or he can TIG it with a 4340 filler rod.
Click to expand...

A deep penetrating rod would probably be best, 7018? That's what I am using on my anvil.
 
Stacy those are great! Something to strive for.
If I decided to weld over that inclusion would it give me trouble later during hardening?
 
It appears to be a bad weld, not an inclusion. Welding it closed with a deep weld would help a lot, but a large mass of steel might shear along the bad weld line in hardening. There would be a chance of the hammer splitting open right down the middle...but you have noting to loose by trying.
 
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