First attempt at a rose

[Oldsarge]

I've seen these made by a few members, so I thought I'd give it a try... not as easy as I thought it would be.... I heated the leaves in the forge and hammered in veins and folded it over and unfolded it to get the effects. The picture on the bench is before powdercoating.... The powdercoat turned out pretty good, I might try a few more, I learned a lot about the process with this one and think I can do better!

Oldsarge

[shalfpap]

WOW!!Nice work!!!

[Shane Warnick]

Nice looking rose, I really like the shine from the powdercoat, really makes it stand out.

The way I used to make them with the forge was in one piece, basically all the leaves were arranged in a row with the bottoms connected, largest down to smallest. The stem was left connected to the bottom of the smallest (center) part of the bud, then you hammered them out a little and added details such as veins etc, but usually only to the outside couple of rows. I used to dish them out much like you did, then take a good heat, bend the stem around 90 degrees and start rolling. Roll it all up nice and tight, then reheat, and reverse the roll a little to spread it all out some. Then you can roll the tops of the leaves out and add the depth.

Since you have a plasma, you could easily draw up a file and cut the leaves in one piece out of say 18 or 20g steel, then take the whole piece over to your planishing hammer and dish them out. FWIW if you had some 1/16" stainless rod, you could taper one end down and use that in conjunction with the planishing hammer to make the veins. Dish it, then lay the stainless on top and whack whack a few times and shazaam a vein. Make three or four vein stamps with different curls and tapers etc, then you could vary them some. It won't look like much of a crease until you get the finish on them, then it will pop right out at you. Give the stem some texture with a hammer on the anvil, then weld it on and roll it up unroll etc.

I found that once I had done a few if you didn't know exactly what to look for you couldn't tell the one piece model from one that was made with each petal separate, and it really cut production time waaay down. Which is really handy when you have to make 4-5 dozen for valentines day or someone's anniversary.

If you want I can look around I think I have some papers with the instructions and pictures and perhaps the pattern, as well as some patterns for the rose petals that are in groups of 2 or 3 where you make a hole in the middle of them and use a monkey tool to set them down onto the stem. Making the monkey tool is easy enough, takes about 5 minutes with a drill press.

It's been awhile since I made any, but now that I have a plasma table the wheels are turning, I may have to draw some up. Be nice filler pieces to cut out of drops over the next few months, then I could start assembling them middle to end of January. Heck, I bet you could just cut up a whole sheet of 20g and make enough to 100-120 roses. I used to sell them for $300 a dozen raw no powdercoat or paint etc. I would think in the right market you could get $450-500 a dozen. I also used to frost the tips of the petals and the stem leaves with copper or bronze that kinda looked cool, also sandblasted some and heated them waay up and quenched them in used ATF fluid. Turns them all kinds of blue and purple and green. Some clear powdercoat over that would keep them looking shiny.

Too many idea's not enough time.

I wanna know when you sleep. Anyways, if you are interested in that info shoot me a pm or an email @ sales@olemetalfab.com I will see if I can dig that stuff up it's around here somewhere. If anyone else wants it don't be shy, ask I will see what I can do.

Shane

[AnotherDano]

Here is a pattern;

RoseKit.dxf

(426.57 KiB) Downloaded 305 times

[Redneck]

That is fantastic!!!! Thank you for posting the pic, and Dano...thanks for the .dxf!

[Shane Warnick]

Nice file Dano, that is similar to the one I was talking about, I just have a few pictures no file.

Shane

[COLT]

Oldsarge,

What forge do you have? Home made or store bought. Something I would like to start doing but dont know where to start. Anyone else with info please chime in.

Thanks in advance

Colt

[Oldsarge]

Oldsarge,

What forge do you have? Home made or store bought. Something I would like to start doing but dont know where to start. Anyone else with info please chime in.

Thanks in advance

Colt

Home made from a cross section about 16" long of a 300 CFM oxygen cylinder... You can get condemned cylinders for cheap through local welding suppliers in most areas.

Ceramic wool blanket soaked in refractory cement and formed to the inside of the tank. I made my own burner from a piece of 3/4" pipe and a .023 mig welding tip... All info I got from Plain Ol Bill's build, and watching YouTube videos....

If I ever get really serious about smithing, I'd like to have a coal forge, they are a lot easier to work on bigger pieces but you need a lot more room for them.

Oldsarge

[Corfabrication]

That's awesome!