Try to read the title with a bit of Mambo #5, if you can.
If not, well, I never claimed to be a genius. Not on this blog, anyway.
One of the few goals of the month of January that I am actually on track to fulfill is the bronze casting one. Well, that and not murdering my dog for shitting in the house. That one's still a go too. Anyway, I feel I should tell you all about what's going on while I wait for my molasses-pepper glazed chicken to cook.
I have zero experience in casting. I'm not unfamiliar with metal work, but we're talking stuff like sheet metal, a bit of arc welding, riveting and stuff like that. Casting is not something I've done. Nor am I working with any experts in the field, so to speak. I'm something of an autodidact, I most teach myself what I want to know. At least I prefer to start by experimenting, then doing research, then, and only then, if all else fails, do I seek lessons, knowing exactly what my limits are before I go in.
My primary interest is not merely casting for its own sake, nor chasing the almighty dollar... though both are good enough reasons for me. No, I'm actually attempting to recreate bronze age weapons and armor, with an emphasis on Greek Antiquities. I'll probably skip the Bronze Panoply.
Once I'm comfortable with my skills in bronze age armory, I plan to move quickly into iron and steel, blacksmithing essentially.
Mind you, I'm not simply talking about a bit of notional modern interpretation. I'll learn on a modern propane furnace, and I'm using common steel tools to do the work, but eventually I plan to step back and get primitive. Clay and brick kiln, simpler, historically accurate tools... that sort of thing. When it comes to the Iron and Steel, I expect not simply to make modern steels into useful implements, but to actually cast and forge what I need from raw iron, turning out my own steel. Hell, I may even attempt the classic Japanese forging techniques. After all, they can make a Katana cut a TANK in HALF!!!
Or, whatever.
So, that's where I'm going.
Here's where I'm at.
To learn to cast bronze, you first start learning some basic woodworking. This was a bit of a shock to me, mind you. I'm happy enough lashing logs together to make raft or a cabin or some shit, but whittling and carving have never exactly been my strong suits... and not for a lack of trying when I was younger.
See, you can't just make a mold to pour your hot metal into, you have to have something shaped like what you're casting to make the mold out of.
Now, I could go total, old school, primative on y'all and just carve a crude mold out of a chunk of soapstone, and skip the die, but that's trying a little two hard.
So, for the last month I've been carving a chunk of poplar into a rough approximation of the sword I intend to cast. It has been a frustrating and difficult time, and I'm not done yet.
But, for the first time in nearly two weeks I feel like I've made real progress.
Mind you, this is entirely by hand. No power tools.
For two weeks I've cut and rasped and chiseled away at this board and only just barely got something close to what I wanted. I bought a plane, and wept when I barely did what I wanted it to do.
No, I didn't weep. That's poetic license.
But, way back when I started this trip I bought a chisel, and a set of smaller carving chisels. And today I went to town on the part that's been holding me up the most. It went shockingly well, astoundingly well. So good, in fact, that all my previous doubts as to my ability to make my own die, even just a simple one like this, have more or less evaporated. I am a new man.
Oh.. my sword is going to be ass, I expect that. I'm probably going to have balancing issues, and once I've cast it the real work actually starts, but for now I'm looking at having a chunk of poplar that I could legitimately shank you with, which is more than I had the other day.
No.
I could shank you with it, but now it actually looks like a sword die, rather than a really awkward vampire stake or super short fence picket.
Anyway: As a bit of tie in with previous posts, I'd like to comment that this is the sort of hobby, the sort of side activity I, and others, should be taking up instead of Television or Video Games, the sort of thing we used to do as a people that we've mostly forgotten.
Not that I'm prepared to give up my games. If you see some laggy, stutter-stop motion guy running around in Warframe, say "hey!". It might be me.
Fake Update: Check this space for pictures of the work in progress, once I've gotten time to get them up.
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