Sunday, 2 September 2012

Forging copper


The billet of cast copper was sawn in half and one of the halves was taken as an experiment to get a feel for hot working this material.
 
 
I found that it would happily be drawn or forged out at colder temperature but when punching; the stress caused it to crack.

 

After this experiment, I proceeded to forge out the other piece of copper to a tapering lozenge shape
 
 
 


 
The hole was hot punched with my father’s help



And fitted to the tang of the sword with a few taps
 

Next job is to file in the form and then scroll up the guard.

 
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1 comment:

  1. Anonymous5 November 2013 at 20:53

    I have loved reading your progress from the current working backwards!

    Regarding punching through the copper, if you cast it, it is nearly as hard is it can be. However, if you cast it and then annealed it (of course then quenching in water as to not let it slow cool and half harden), you may have better success. That's quite a thick piece of copper, but you'll certainly have a better success annealing it.

    Great work. Just fantastic.

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