New Mokume Gane

[JJ Simon]

I've been doing a little Mokume and here are 2 pieces

the round one is about 2" in Diameter

and the square one about 1.5X1.5"

 

 

[bronzetools]

Nice, What metals and how did you fuse them?

Steve

[JJ Simon]

This is coin mokume,

Done in a charcoal forge.

I hit the coins real quick with steel wool

put them in a a piece of 1" black iron pipe that I turned the lip over on so the coins don't fall out the bottom.

I heat them to orange/yellow (safety not, wear your oxy-acetylene glasses when looking into the forge)

pull the pipe out which I call the coin jig, and take a piece of 1" drill rod put it on the top coin and hammer them down.

I repeat the process 2 or 3 times trying to let them soak a bit without melting them.

Grind the pipe away and heat the billet and hammer it flat taking care to hit hard but not to bash the hell out of it, to avoid delamination.

Once I reduce by a third I start patterning. I use a disk grinder with a flap sander on it to sand away some ovals in the faces of the billet.

You can drill but I haven't had a lot of luck with doing that.

heat back up and hammer and keep repeating until you get the thickness you want.

I will post better pics when the polish is done.

Thanks for looking.

JJ

[Casey Alexander]

Ive been doing quite a bit of coin mokume myself(pendants and bottle,letter openers).Ive been heating up finished pieces with a propane torch to get different temper colors.Its easy to get a different look this way.Also,twisting after drilling or grinding.Just twist as hot as you can and reheat as necessary,it wants to crack and it loses heat quickly.Mokume is fun stuff.

[JJ Simon]

You can spray them with lacquer and heat them and they turn a real rich red color.

Don't breath the fumes....

[JJ Simon]

This is one of the pieces hit with a torch.

The pattern is much more noticeable.

[Casey Alexander]

Yeah, thats alot like some of mine look.You can get blues,golds,purple.And if you dont like it just buff it out and do it again.

[Casey Alexander]

And dont forget about etching to get some different effects and textures.

[tormentchris]

hey, i'm glad you mentioned this. i have a buddy that does some real nice Mokume with quarters. there beautiful. i plan to try some myself here soon, for bolsters and pommels. i just don't want to mess up, it's 10 to 20 dollars a pop, literally. pun intended, kinda

-chris

[Casey Alexander]

I just used some for a guard on a smaller knife.On this one I just used a straight stack of about 5 or 6 quarters.No patterning,just straight laminate.Turned out pretty cool looking.On the pendants and other stuff I rarely use more than a buck or two.i havent needed any big pieces for what Ive done so far.Dimes work good too.

[tormentchris]

so, what happens, does the different metals just bleed through from the top from hitting it, or do you have to start forging it out flat from the side to get the patterns?

-chris