Illuminated Tools: Getting Started

First I did 1:1 sketches of the tools.





These aren't exact blueprints, just scaled examples of where the project is headed.

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.

The Illuminated Tool series

As I near the end of art school I'm expected to take more initiative and to find my "voice." Part of that is  doing an Independent Study, a semester long project of my own design. I'm currently working under Constance Dejong on a series I'm calling Illuminated Tools.
You may be familiar with illuminated manuscripts from the Middle Ages, hand produced books highly decorated with illustration and gold leaf.

Source

I will be applying this methodology to hand tools, items that have come to be considered dirty, low class, and low value. Any good tradesman knows the value of a quality tool, but somehow a country built by tradesmen has allowed the production and sale of cheaply made and disposable tools to take over the market. I suspect this is directly tied to the lack of appreciation given to labor and craft based occupations and the decline of the middle class. But I digress.
My goal is to present high quality, hand made, usable tools that are obviously precious by their polish, adornment and fine materials.

I'll be making four items overall for this project, a hammer, a wrench and a drafting set (a compass and straightedge). These items represent what I believe are the three major stages of human industry that led us to where we are now: forming, such as smithing and hand working raw materials; the industrial revolution, when work became more about operating and maintaining machines than making products; and design, when concept and creation became separated.

I will be making everything but the raw materials by hand for this project, and many of my tools will be homemade as well. I'll also be learning completely new skills like smithing, forge welding, electro-chemical etching, and wood turning. I will also be practicing skills I don't normally use like polishing and drawing. Most of the materials will be forged steel and cast bronze.
This will be my primary project for the next few months.

New Ceramic Skulls After Firing

Armored Glove

Working on a cast bronze armored glove/gauntlet. Bringing all the soft squishy bits from under the skin to outside the armor.Still in wax right now.

One 'art' please...

Golly everyone, it sure is a good thing that I'm in art school, look at this art I made from a picture of my ancient skull:

I found the contrast and brightness sliders all on my own, and I was brave enough to turn them BOTH all the way up. Get ready world, next I'm going to turn your contrast up!

Ancient Skull

My handmade ceramic skull based on Paranthropus Aethiopicus is available for sale on my store.

Clay totems

I've been making a new batch of personal totems. They're high-fire clay and completely hand made. 

Baby Squid

Turtle Fetus

Fertility totems in progress

They're available for purchase on my etsy store or at Abitha's Apothecary in Albuquerque NM.

Carving Fool

Working on a hand carved from wood. I started with my dear friend Rebecca's left hand.

Which she was kind enough to lend out.

 I will be using 3/4 inch pine doweling, coarse files, and my pocket knife.

I cut individual pieces of dowel for each  section of each figure, working from the cast I rough out the shape of each finger and do more detailed carving with the knife.

They will be sanded and stained, and I will attach them together with copper brackets at each joint.

Regrouping, Minimally

Following my ordeal trying to work with glass I still needed a minimalist sculpture for school. I had two steel frames already made, so I ran with them.

I had welded on tabs that were going to hold the glass sheets, but now they were unnecessary and unsightly.

But thankfully they were easy to remove.

After grinding and sanding off all the blemishes, I cut one corner off the larger frame and put it on top of the smaller one, and slightly at an angle.

Then welded on some quick feet to keep it upright.

And painted it matte black.

Before

After

And bam! Display In the courtyard.

UPDATE: This piece was very well received and I was invited to install it in a courtyard on campus, along with another student. It is also available for purchase.

Lessons and Lacerations

Recently I teased about a new project I was starting, it involved large sheets of glass, approximately 34"x75".

These sheets were very generously donated to me by the Downtown Action Team, a great organization that has helped push out the drug addicts, beggars and fights that accompanied downtown Albuquerque in my youth and replaced it with a business and family friendly environment that I hope will continue to thrive.

This was going to be a minimalist sculpture, consisting of four sheets of glass standing straight up with only a base and no frames.

I hope it's obvious by now why I don't draw.

 Because the sheets are only about an 1/8 of an inch thick I decided that laminating two together would add enough strength to relieve my fears of a stiff breeze bending and breaking the sculpture.
To work with the glass I added extensions onto my workable to support the whole six-foot length.

Knowing that silicone caulking sticks tremendously to glass (both are silica-based after all) I decided that would make a great adhesive for laminating two sheets. But the caulk was WAY too viscous, I couldn't spread it or even get it off my tools our hands until it was cured.

May have ruined this sheet, haven't tried to scrape it off yet but I'm not hopeful.

Not being able to afford a more suitable adhesive in large quantity I decided to risk the project with only one sheet, or possibly use hardware to hold two together.

My original plan involved drilling through one end of the glass sheets so that the angle-steel could be bolted securely on. The plan also involved inserts in the glass holes and rubber washers to keep the hardware from damaging the glass.

Unfortunately, even with a Bosch carbide glass drill bit I didn't even make one hole before the glass broke.

It didn't just break either, it practically EXPLODED, I found shards of glass up to seven feet away from the near-end of the table. Thirty seconds of drilling cost me over three hours of cleanup time, and I'm still finding pieces every day. The dog certainly won't be allowed out there for a long time. While attempting this I had the glass well supported, the drilling area was bathed in water, and I went as slow as my drill could manage.

Changing gears again, I decided that I could put four sheets together in a vertical, rectangular prism with steel frames at top and bottom. Fabrication of the frames went famously, with some of my most precise (non-milled) cuts and best weld beads ever. Unfortunately, I was a little too precise and didn't allow room for the glass sheets to slide past each other during assembly.

I found this out when another sheet exploded in my hands, showering both myself and my partner (who was kind enough to be helping me when she should have been safe and cozy in the house) with tiny shards of glass that were stuck in both our hair and clothes. Thankfully, neither of us were injured.

At this point I decided that the material was too fragile and dangerous for me to continue experimenting with. I still have many sheets left to find another use for, but the minimalist sculpture will have to be achieved in a different way.

This has been a major learning experience for me, I'm used to working with metal, and wood to a lesser extent; materials that can be roughhoused and forced into compliance. If metal or wood needs a hole I drill it, if it needs to be smaller I cut or grind it. Glass is clearly a different kind of animal, it is entirely possible to manipulate it like the others, but the techniques and care needed are much more intensive. I could pay to have professionals do these things for me, but I can't afford that and paying someone else to do it really isn't the point of all this. So, like I  mentioned this glass will be used for something eventually, I just won't have such grand arrogant expectations of making it do my bidding.


Post Script:
By the way, while working with the glass I wore safety glasses the whole time, and while drilling and cleaning up the shards I wore a respirator, some particles were almost microscopic and only visible by a telltale glittering, this is NOT something you want to inhale. Despite my caution with the glass, I spent a lot of time welding in a tank top and was rewarded with a sunburn on one shoulder.

Arc welders like the MIG, TIG and 'stick' produce massive amounts of ultraviolet radiation, the same kind of radiation that comes from the sun and causes burns and cancer,  please be more careful than I was.