Colman’s Drawing Becomes a Bowl
Colman showed me a drawing in the last week of June and gave me a scanned print of it. I thought it would be interesting to see if I could make a bowl like the drawing, so I and bought a couple 7 inch copper disks at Metalliferous and on the 27th I began to hammer the bowl into shape. I sank the disk into a depression as a first raising. Here’s a link to my ‘raising’ video on YouTube.
After annealing, it was raised on a T stake.
It was annealed again, I began to raise it by rounding the sides on a sand bag. For this operation, I began my hammering from the rim toward the base. That way the bowl would retain its diameter and the sides would round outward giving the bowl a little height in the process. The bowl is shiny where I have struck the metal with the ball peen hammer and duller where I have yet to work the shape.
The bowl was raised significantly and rounded nearer the finished profile.
It was annealed again, I used the surface gauge to mark and then trimmed the rim to an even height. The next step was to draw on the ’shield’ shape triangles.
I used the surface gauge to scratch in lines for the height and depth of the scalloped edge, the bowl was divided into 9 sections and the triangular shapes modified.
I chased in all of the lines after scratching a more definite path with my awl. Cutting the scallops will be one of the last operations, I hear Gennady in the background saying, ’later, there is always time to cut.’
I have recently purchased this book at Metalliferous. It is a beautiful and thorough work on all aspects of chasing and repoussé. There are sections on tools and toolmaking, the different types of pitch and eastern methods, different from those we learned in the west. The book is illustrated with shots of the various tools and materials interspersed with photos of remarkable works in metal. I recommend this for anyone interested in doing this type of work. The author is Nancy Megan Corwin and the publisher is Brynmorgen in Maine. (It cost $33.00 plus tax)
I had never seen anyone shape the pitch before seeing the illustrations in the book about making a cuff.
It led me to line the bowl with pitch rather than try to fill it completely or use some wood to solidify a layer of pitch. I don’t have a piece of wood that would work for this job and the lining allows me to constantly shift the bowl on the end of a sandbag while I work on it. I raised the sandbag on a short plank of wood because, in some positions, the bowl’s lower edge was against the table.
Pitch removed and annealed again, it was ready to receive a little more relief.
I carved a depression in one of my tree slices and used the ball peen hammer to push the ’shields’ out from the inside. I also used a pear shaped repuossé tool in the points of the triangle.
Once the shields were pushed out, I hammered the base all around on the inside to push a little more volume into the bowl. Then I lined it with pitch so I could work on the narrower triangles from the outside of the bowl adding some contrast to the relief. I will probably push the narrower triangles out from the inside once their edges are more defined. I’ve had to stop work on this bowl momentarily because I am involved with the VanDuzer Saturdays here on Staten Island, there’s also some pressing work in the graphic part of my studio. So, this is where I leave the bowl for now.
