Some Selection In Metal

[EdMcDonnell]

Although I love working with resins, I've recently become fascinated with the use of metal in pen making. Specifically the artistic texturing and carving of metal pen bodies. I rarely make more than one of any pen design, but in this case I was curious to examine the same pen design in different metals. Pictured below are the same pen in aluminum and copper:

 

 

 

The aluminum version weighs 37 grams and the copper version weighs 65 grams. I had expected a slightly larger difference in weight given that the copper is more than 3 times as dense as aluminum. The aluminum is comparable to the weight of the same type of design executed in resin.

 

The aluminum version feels great writing with the cap either posted or not. The copper version is a pleasure to use without the cap posted. I haven't made up my mind about writing with the copper version posted. It's quite a big increase in weight for me, but the more I use it the more I begin to warm to it.

 

Ed

[basterma]

Nice idea. I like both. I assume you stamped out the pattern on flat sheet then wrapped the sheets around the barrel?

[visvamitra]

Amazing

[EdMcDonnell]

Nice idea. I like both. I assume you stamped out the pattern on flat sheet then wrapped the sheets around the barrel?

Actually, both pens started as solid rods of metal. The design is a 3D shallow relief rotary carving into the metal body of the pen.

 

While stamping and wrapping might be a faster technique, you would be left with an unsightly seam. There is no seam with my approach. Also the varying diameter and curves in the body of the pen would require a special stamp designed to compensate for that to avoid design distortion / truncation when wrapped. The creation of that specialized stamp would offset a lot of the time saved by stamping / wrapping instead of carving.

 

I am investigating the use of stamping and hydraulic forming for the fabrication of custom clips for my pens. I think that has real potential, but I'm not there yet.

 

Ed

[richardandtracy]

!!!!!!!!!!

Gorgeous. When I first saw them, my initial thought was 4 axis cnc. What you have done is even more difficult.

 

My one concern about the copper one is marks from the metal & metal transfer to hands & eventually mouth causing a vile taste. Could be cured with lacquer.

I assume the aluminium is anodised, otherwise black marks could also happen on the hands.

 

Superb.

 

Richard

[EdMcDonnell]

!!!!!!!!!!

Gorgeous. When I first saw them, my initial thought was 4 axis cnc. What you have done is even more difficult.

 

My one concern about the copper one is marks from the metal & metal transfer to hands & eventually mouth causing a vile taste. Could be cured with lacquer.

I assume the aluminium is anodised, otherwise black marks could also happen on the hands.

 

Superb.

 

Richard

 

Thanks Richard - The shallow relief carving was done on a small multi-axis cnc mill. I only used 3 of the 4 axes (one being rotary). While I have done my share of hand carving in wood, I would not want to attempt something like this in metal.

 

I have not anodized the aluminum or coated the copper. I'm using these as daily carry pens so I can see how they react over time. So far so good. The aluminum alloy I used (6061) is showing excellent resistance to corrosion. Frequent handling of the copper pen seems to be keeping it from showing tarnish and there has been no noticeable transfer of metal marks to hands or anything else. After a while I will set both of them aside untouched for a month or two and see what that brings.

 

On the next copper pen I make I plan to explore incorporating a forced patina into the design. This will require that I coat the finished pen to preserve the patina. Lacquer is certainly an option for this, but I am investigating alternatives.

 

Ed

[richardandtracy]

Ahh. So I was right, despite having convinced myself I wasn't.

 

For info, if you go to my website there is a little page of freebie cnc downloads ( http://www.chestnutpens.co.uk/misc/downloads.html ) that you may find useful. I think the thread milling program may be the most useful, just using XY & Z axes with the item to be threaded standing upright. All the programs are aimed at Mach3 compatible input as that's the controller I have - there seem to be lots of others and I'm not sure I've made the input parsing robust enough for all possible variations on the programs that modify G Code. I'd appreciate comments if you download the programs and feel that improvements could be made.

I have two further programs on the go which may end up as freebies too.

1. Profile Wrapping. Imagine you have some G code for machining a pattern into a flat surface, however you want to put that shape on a cylinder, you can use CNCWrapper, or my own equivalent. However, what happens if it's not a cylinder, but a general solid of revolution that you want the machining to be wrapped around? There doesn't seem to be a program available where you can specify the shape of the profile & then wrap the g code around it, so I wrote a program myself. It could enable machining on tapers/finials/sections etc. I'm testing this program out at the moment - and do have a slight problem big steps in the profile or gaps where the input G code passes over an area where the profile hasn't been defined.
2. Toolpath modeller. I am also writing a 3D modeller to create toolpaths directly without the need for CAD input (though it will cope with CAD input). This is principally so I can import .obj or .stl files and machine them using XZA axes or XYZA. 4603 lines of code into the modeller unit & I can create straight toolpaths... Not going to be quick. It's based on my 3D modeller and I'm just adding extra capability to the program.

Hope these are of interest,

 

Richard.