22-06-2011, 12:37 PM
Hi,
Now for something a bit different and something I’ve not attempted before although the technique is ancient. I wanted to fit a brass nameplate onto the box declaring its contents because these gears have a tendency of becoming separated from the winder rendering the winder useless. Lots of loose gear wheels mean very little to the average person but by housing them in a French polished wooden box they suddenly look important and hopefully will be treated as so. Please see;
http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=boulle+work&hl=en&prmd=ivns&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=1p8BTsG3H8fKhAfl45i4DQ&ved=0CDMQsAQ&biw=1024&bih=677
I wanted to make the nameplate using hand tools at the least cost possible; I do own a very expensive top of the range variable speed Hegner Scrollsaw but decided to see if I was still capable of decent hand work so opted to use my old fashioned hand fret saw fitted with a piercing blade. Piercing saws are rather different to the common fretsaw the fret saw usually being regarded as a wood cutting saw used by modelers. Here is a genuine piercing saw;
http://www.dave-cushman.net/bee/piercingsaw.html
The fret saw is more cumbersome to use than a proper piercing saw but has the advantage of a deeper throat; fitted with a piercing saw blade it does a good job.
I was surprised how long it took me to locate a suitable AVO logo but after surfing the web and finding lots of car parts I eventually found a suitable logo on my wave winder manual so scanned this and printed it out onto normal copy paper. I own two printers and both really need dumping in a skip as they are useless. My Samsung laser printer cost £80 years ago and right from the start whilst fitted with the correct toner cartridge it printed a very dark grey even with “Toner save” de-activated; when the cartridge ran out I was expected to pay £79.95 for a new genuine cartridge so opted for re-filling the original with powder bought from the Internet at a greatly reduced price.
My newish Epson all in one eats cartridges. The original cartridges soon ran out so once again I resorted to the Internet and bought equivalents only to find after installing a new cartridge and printing a test page the cartridge then read just over half full; this not only applies to equivalent cartridges because I surfed the web to find many owners of these printers have the same problem even whilst using genuine cartridge; this printer is now refusing to print demanding yet another yellow cartridge which it isn’t going to get and I now only use the scanner section so another lot of wasted money.
My plan was to use thick brass sheet as a backing plate and cut the logo and letters from thinner brass sheet using the fret saw then after fettling secure the letters and logo using powerful adhesive which Bron has kindly let me have; Bron uses Unibond Extreme Power Glue in her craft work and hopefully once I reach the stage it will prove ideal.
As an experiment I only printed copies of the AVO logo and secured a single copy to the thin sheet (15 thou) using double sided tape. I already had thick brass sheet in stock but was very surprised when I bought a piece of thin brass sheet measuring 7.5”x9” handing over £4. Before cutting the logo free from the larger sheet I drilled all the holes (pierced) for blade access to remove inner waste. The paper was helpful in preventing the drill bit from wandering.
AVO logo drilled and cut out.
I had already made a simple wooden sawing table from offcuts designing the table to be gripped in the woodworking vice; such tables are commonly called “pegs” but pegs are made slightly differently. I made the table extend from the vice far enough to prevent catching my hand on the vice whilst sawing. The table was made in minutes.
[attachment=2176][attachment=2177]
Sawing table and piercing saw blades.
With everything set up; the table in the vice; the piercing saw blade fitted and the chair pulled up to the vice I cut my very first piece of brass sheet using the fret saw; at first the blade wanted to bind at the start of the cut but I quickly found out a very gentle touch is needed and taking my time I cut the square from the sheet. I didn’t bother to lubricate the blade in fact I didn’t know lubrication was needed until later.
Now things quickly became interesting as the piece of brass was now considerably smaller and took some handling. I thought it best to remove the inner waste from the logo whilst the piece was at maximum size and slotted the blade through the first hole (Holes drilled at 1.5mm). Trying once again I had the logo the correct way up the second time now I had a major problem I couldn’t see what I was doing with my head at 45 degrees looking towards the sky in order to focus through my bi-focal glasses; I hate these glasses with a passion so in frustration dumped them on the bench; with a single strip light on the ceiling I was further hampered but I found that by putting my face close to the work I could now see what the blade was doing and found my rhythm with the saw; cutting gently using the full length of the blade taking great care to cut to the printing I was most impressed when I removed the saw to view my handiwork.
Piercing saw blades come in a range of different sized teeth and when I bought the Hegner I also bought a selection of piercing saw blades as I intended to have a go at Boulle Work at some point and these blades are cheap as can be seen in the picture. The blades are incredibly sharp and cut the thin brass sheet with ease.
I completed removing the inner waste from the logo then removed the outer waste which was more difficult as by now the piece of brass had become even smaller and much care was needed not to distort the thin sections as cutting proceeded. Cutting out the logo went much quicker than expected and although the logo needed fettling it looked excellent for a first attempt so next job was to tackle the letters.
Cutting the logo out required a lot of patience and care but I found the process most enjoyable and quickly mastered using the saw. It was difficult at first because I was all fingers and thumbs and at times found my hand and fingers ached due to holding the logo onto the table as the logo wanted to lift with the upward stroke of the saw. The saw table although adequate could be improved on it’s design; the hole could benefit from being made much smaller diameter and the cut out “V” needs to be much shallower for supporting small items being cut also the thickness of the table proved a problem it needs reducing below the “V”.
Spurred on by this success I selected suitable thick fonts and printed out the letters and attached these to the brass sheet again using double sided tape. Now the fun really began; the letters being much smaller than the logo proved at first to be extremely difficult to hold down onto the table; the inner waste of certain letters like “A” and “R” was now tiny so I used a 1mm drill bit and as before removed the inner waste first. Initial cutting of the outer letter profile was not too hard whilst the letter was still attached to the larger piece of brass but as cutting proceeded holding became increasingly difficult but once again with a little practice I soon got the hang of it; a thumb nail makes an excellent hold down; the letter “S” was a real challenge; I spent four hours cutting out 21 letters in the afternoon; in the evening I couldn’t settle so went into the workshop once again but now feeling refreshed and having had some practice cut out the remaining ten letters in 45 minutes. During all this cutting I only broke one blade when I inadvertently allowing the work to lift nipping the blade whilst applying too much enthusiasm.
Letters attached with double sided tape and cut out.
I hope this information isn’t too long winded but is exactly as I’ve done the job to date and there is yet plenty more to follow; at this point I don’t yet know if I will succeed in making the nameplate but I’m enjoying myself whilst trying. More to follow once I can resume work in the workshop.
Kind regards, Col.
Now for something a bit different and something I’ve not attempted before although the technique is ancient. I wanted to fit a brass nameplate onto the box declaring its contents because these gears have a tendency of becoming separated from the winder rendering the winder useless. Lots of loose gear wheels mean very little to the average person but by housing them in a French polished wooden box they suddenly look important and hopefully will be treated as so. Please see;
http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=boulle+work&hl=en&prmd=ivns&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=1p8BTsG3H8fKhAfl45i4DQ&ved=0CDMQsAQ&biw=1024&bih=677
I wanted to make the nameplate using hand tools at the least cost possible; I do own a very expensive top of the range variable speed Hegner Scrollsaw but decided to see if I was still capable of decent hand work so opted to use my old fashioned hand fret saw fitted with a piercing blade. Piercing saws are rather different to the common fretsaw the fret saw usually being regarded as a wood cutting saw used by modelers. Here is a genuine piercing saw;
http://www.dave-cushman.net/bee/piercingsaw.html
The fret saw is more cumbersome to use than a proper piercing saw but has the advantage of a deeper throat; fitted with a piercing saw blade it does a good job.
I was surprised how long it took me to locate a suitable AVO logo but after surfing the web and finding lots of car parts I eventually found a suitable logo on my wave winder manual so scanned this and printed it out onto normal copy paper. I own two printers and both really need dumping in a skip as they are useless. My Samsung laser printer cost £80 years ago and right from the start whilst fitted with the correct toner cartridge it printed a very dark grey even with “Toner save” de-activated; when the cartridge ran out I was expected to pay £79.95 for a new genuine cartridge so opted for re-filling the original with powder bought from the Internet at a greatly reduced price.
My newish Epson all in one eats cartridges. The original cartridges soon ran out so once again I resorted to the Internet and bought equivalents only to find after installing a new cartridge and printing a test page the cartridge then read just over half full; this not only applies to equivalent cartridges because I surfed the web to find many owners of these printers have the same problem even whilst using genuine cartridge; this printer is now refusing to print demanding yet another yellow cartridge which it isn’t going to get and I now only use the scanner section so another lot of wasted money.
My plan was to use thick brass sheet as a backing plate and cut the logo and letters from thinner brass sheet using the fret saw then after fettling secure the letters and logo using powerful adhesive which Bron has kindly let me have; Bron uses Unibond Extreme Power Glue in her craft work and hopefully once I reach the stage it will prove ideal.
As an experiment I only printed copies of the AVO logo and secured a single copy to the thin sheet (15 thou) using double sided tape. I already had thick brass sheet in stock but was very surprised when I bought a piece of thin brass sheet measuring 7.5”x9” handing over £4. Before cutting the logo free from the larger sheet I drilled all the holes (pierced) for blade access to remove inner waste. The paper was helpful in preventing the drill bit from wandering.
AVO logo drilled and cut out.
I had already made a simple wooden sawing table from offcuts designing the table to be gripped in the woodworking vice; such tables are commonly called “pegs” but pegs are made slightly differently. I made the table extend from the vice far enough to prevent catching my hand on the vice whilst sawing. The table was made in minutes.
[attachment=2176][attachment=2177]
Sawing table and piercing saw blades.
With everything set up; the table in the vice; the piercing saw blade fitted and the chair pulled up to the vice I cut my very first piece of brass sheet using the fret saw; at first the blade wanted to bind at the start of the cut but I quickly found out a very gentle touch is needed and taking my time I cut the square from the sheet. I didn’t bother to lubricate the blade in fact I didn’t know lubrication was needed until later.
Now things quickly became interesting as the piece of brass was now considerably smaller and took some handling. I thought it best to remove the inner waste from the logo whilst the piece was at maximum size and slotted the blade through the first hole (Holes drilled at 1.5mm). Trying once again I had the logo the correct way up the second time now I had a major problem I couldn’t see what I was doing with my head at 45 degrees looking towards the sky in order to focus through my bi-focal glasses; I hate these glasses with a passion so in frustration dumped them on the bench; with a single strip light on the ceiling I was further hampered but I found that by putting my face close to the work I could now see what the blade was doing and found my rhythm with the saw; cutting gently using the full length of the blade taking great care to cut to the printing I was most impressed when I removed the saw to view my handiwork.
Piercing saw blades come in a range of different sized teeth and when I bought the Hegner I also bought a selection of piercing saw blades as I intended to have a go at Boulle Work at some point and these blades are cheap as can be seen in the picture. The blades are incredibly sharp and cut the thin brass sheet with ease.
I completed removing the inner waste from the logo then removed the outer waste which was more difficult as by now the piece of brass had become even smaller and much care was needed not to distort the thin sections as cutting proceeded. Cutting out the logo went much quicker than expected and although the logo needed fettling it looked excellent for a first attempt so next job was to tackle the letters.
Cutting the logo out required a lot of patience and care but I found the process most enjoyable and quickly mastered using the saw. It was difficult at first because I was all fingers and thumbs and at times found my hand and fingers ached due to holding the logo onto the table as the logo wanted to lift with the upward stroke of the saw. The saw table although adequate could be improved on it’s design; the hole could benefit from being made much smaller diameter and the cut out “V” needs to be much shallower for supporting small items being cut also the thickness of the table proved a problem it needs reducing below the “V”.
Spurred on by this success I selected suitable thick fonts and printed out the letters and attached these to the brass sheet again using double sided tape. Now the fun really began; the letters being much smaller than the logo proved at first to be extremely difficult to hold down onto the table; the inner waste of certain letters like “A” and “R” was now tiny so I used a 1mm drill bit and as before removed the inner waste first. Initial cutting of the outer letter profile was not too hard whilst the letter was still attached to the larger piece of brass but as cutting proceeded holding became increasingly difficult but once again with a little practice I soon got the hang of it; a thumb nail makes an excellent hold down; the letter “S” was a real challenge; I spent four hours cutting out 21 letters in the afternoon; in the evening I couldn’t settle so went into the workshop once again but now feeling refreshed and having had some practice cut out the remaining ten letters in 45 minutes. During all this cutting I only broke one blade when I inadvertently allowing the work to lift nipping the blade whilst applying too much enthusiasm.
Letters attached with double sided tape and cut out.
I hope this information isn’t too long winded but is exactly as I’ve done the job to date and there is yet plenty more to follow; at this point I don’t yet know if I will succeed in making the nameplate but I’m enjoying myself whilst trying. More to follow once I can resume work in the workshop.
Kind regards, Col.
