ok so some of you may remember a few months back when i was asking about how to make mkoume gane (or more so tips and tricks) for an independent study i am doing for school.
well saturday i made my first billet with the help of an upperclassman who has made it before. took us less than 4 hours to get from raw materials to a fused billet.
i made a 35 layer billet 1"X3", 26ga copper (18 layers) and fine silver (17 layers), cleaned with scothcbrite pads, put into bags, re-cleaned before we stacked the billet. we were able to get the torque plates one of the grad students had and luckily he stuck around to watch us and give us some help.
we got it all stacked and tightened down the torque plates (not to any specific FT/lbs but snug. tossed it in the pre warmed forge, rotated it 180 and flipped it, waited a bit and then the grad student started saying "pull it pull it pull it" as he saw the back start to melt a touch (the silver started to pull out a bit, nothing major, just a few beads on the back).
pulled it out let it cool a bit then hammered it down in the plates, pulled it and hammered it down a bit. after it cooled i checked it and had a bit of delamination but nothing to big (the top 6 layers fused but didnt fuse to the rest about 3/5ths of the way back, have a small space i havent addressed yet on the side a few more layers down and a touch on the very end that was colder). i think if i had waited 30-45 seconds more before flipping it i would have had a perfect billet.
the guy that helped me and the grad student both were impressed with how well it came out, they said it was one of the best billets that has been done here (mokume has only been done a few times here at VCU so theres not a lot to compete against but being my first time i am extremely happy)
i will get some pics of my billet up soon, i hope to start to pattern it in the nest couple weeks or so and be done with this sheet before march is out ( i have to complete 2 billets/sheets and make one item with some of it).
thank you to del who give me a lot of advice on tips and tricks (i didnt quench the billet like he suggested but i kind of wish i did to help expose this delamination better and i might do it on the next one, its just really hard to plunge almost 100 bucks of metal and 4 hours of work into water knowing it may screw it up beyond repair when you can fudge your way through repairing it)
-matt
well saturday i made my first billet with the help of an upperclassman who has made it before. took us less than 4 hours to get from raw materials to a fused billet.
i made a 35 layer billet 1"X3", 26ga copper (18 layers) and fine silver (17 layers), cleaned with scothcbrite pads, put into bags, re-cleaned before we stacked the billet. we were able to get the torque plates one of the grad students had and luckily he stuck around to watch us and give us some help.
we got it all stacked and tightened down the torque plates (not to any specific FT/lbs but snug. tossed it in the pre warmed forge, rotated it 180 and flipped it, waited a bit and then the grad student started saying "pull it pull it pull it" as he saw the back start to melt a touch (the silver started to pull out a bit, nothing major, just a few beads on the back).
pulled it out let it cool a bit then hammered it down in the plates, pulled it and hammered it down a bit. after it cooled i checked it and had a bit of delamination but nothing to big (the top 6 layers fused but didnt fuse to the rest about 3/5ths of the way back, have a small space i havent addressed yet on the side a few more layers down and a touch on the very end that was colder). i think if i had waited 30-45 seconds more before flipping it i would have had a perfect billet.
the guy that helped me and the grad student both were impressed with how well it came out, they said it was one of the best billets that has been done here (mokume has only been done a few times here at VCU so theres not a lot to compete against but being my first time i am extremely happy)
i will get some pics of my billet up soon, i hope to start to pattern it in the nest couple weeks or so and be done with this sheet before march is out ( i have to complete 2 billets/sheets and make one item with some of it).
thank you to del who give me a lot of advice on tips and tricks (i didnt quench the billet like he suggested but i kind of wish i did to help expose this delamination better and i might do it on the next one, its just really hard to plunge almost 100 bucks of metal and 4 hours of work into water knowing it may screw it up beyond repair when you can fudge your way through repairing it)
-matt
