Starting a New Mosaic

[Gary Mulkey]

As I'm saving most of the handle  work on my latest to be done in my public shop, I decided to get a start on a new mosaic billet today while at home today.  This mosaic pattern requires starting with two initial billets.  The larger one will get turned into a "W" pattern and the smaller one will provide a different pattern which after being 4-wayed will show in the center of the pattern.

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

Here you can see that I ground off two edges from the smaller billet.  This billet had two layers of 15N20 separated by one of 1080 in the center and 4 layers of 1080 on each side.  By grinding this way and then forging it flat I got the 15N20 layers to form an arc.  After I fold this over on it's self it will give me kind of a cat's eye pattern.  This will get three layers of "W" welded to one side of it, squared on the bias and then 4-wayed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hopefully I'll get a little more done on this one tomorrow.

Edited May 20, 2019 by Gary Mulkey

[Eric Morgan]

You never fail to inspire Gary!

[Gary Mulkey]

I got the two patterns stacked & welded  today.  Once I get this ground clean & 4-wayed it will make what I call my "Lost Highway" pattern.

 

 

[Jeremy Blohm]

Awesome!!!

[Gary Mulkey]

As the monsoons set in again here, I closed my public shop  early which gave me some time at the forge and I got this one 4-wayed:

 

 

 

Hopefully you can now see why I call  it  "The Lost Highway" pattern.

[Jeremy Blohm]

That's really cool Gary!!!

[Conner Michaux]

I’m gonna take a play out of Clifford’s book and grab some popcorn and soda 

[Brian Dougherty]

This is even more impressive to me now that I have made a few attempts at it. 

I've been struggling to keep the pattern alignment correct when I square on the bias.  My diagonal bars generally don't end at the corners.  At first I assumed that I must have just got my billet a bit crooked in the squaring dies, but after my last go around, I realized that I must be getting off somewhere else.

How much do you reduce in dimension when you square on the bias?  For example, if you are aiming for a finished size of 1" square after the bias pass, do you start forging on the bias at 1.5"?

Thanks as always for teaching us all so much about this!

[Gary Mulkey]

14 hours ago, Brian Dougherty said:

This is even more impressive to me now that I have made a few attempts at it. 

I've been struggling to keep the pattern alignment correct when I square on the bias.  My diagonal bars generally don't end at the corners.  At first I assumed that I must have just got my billet a bit crooked in the squaring dies, but after my last go around, I realized that I must be getting off somewhere else.

How much do you reduce in dimension when you square on the bias?  For example, if you are aiming for a finished size of 1" square after the bias pass, do you start forging on the bias at 1.5"?

Thanks as always for teaching us all so much about this!

Hi Brian,

I started with a 2" x 2" billet.  I ran it threw the 1 1/2" squaring dies first and then in the 1" dies.

I'm just guessing as I haven't had that problem but the only thing that I can suggest is to keep checking the pattern by etching one end between your various processes to find where it is getting off so that you know how to prevent it.