A few folks mentioned wanting to do some basic metalwork and learn metal working techniques for aligning and measuring and I didn’t want to hijack the thread on Article Ideas so I started this.
There’s lots of other sources to learn metal working. Home Shop Machinist Magazine actually had an article a while ago on assembling a Shepherd smoother kit. Learning metalwork was one of the best things I ever did for furniture making and tool repair. A lot of hardware is made out of brass and can be worked with basic woodworking tools. I’ve cut a lot of brass on the table saw. So you pretty much have a basics for working brass. Learning how to silver braze, patina and a bit of polishing would be most useful. Oxygen with propane will give you the hotter temperatures required for silver brazing. These brushed nickel table feet were were made of brass and cut with a Rockwell contractor saw and sanded with a Craftsman 6 x 48 beltsander. Silver brazing was used to put them together. Some handwork and plating required. A negative hook non-ferrous blade makes a big difference in the cut.
Edited 6/6/2004 7:29 pm ET by rick3ddd
Replies
Those table feet are really nice.
What particular sources of info would you list to get a "metally challenged" person such as myself headed in the right direction? Say, for brass and aluminum which can be cut with carbide blades? Especially, how these two materials can be brazed, soldered, or whatever.
Tough to give a simple answer. Aluminum is a different animal and it can be welded with a gas torch with special rod but if you go too hot it melts...a fine line. More of a pain to finish. Brass is so much nicer. Cuts like butter almost. There's harder brasses as well. Jewelry making books like Tim McCreight's metal working book would be a good start. Solver brazing is more durable than soft solder and a bit tricky to master but worth the effort. Pewter can literally be melted on a home stove and works pretty easy. Overall the brass is a good thing for furniture makers. I've made my own knife hinges and stuff you can't buy not to mention modifying existing hardware and putting a new finish on it. There's some books on metal that kind of deal with machining and metal craft that give a good background. Modern Metalworking by John Walker is a mix. Plus there's a ton of websites devoted to metal and jewelry. A lot of furniture hardware is architectural jewelry anyway. Plus I get a lot of catalogs related to everyhing from casting to patina not to mention jewelry. I kind of borrow bits and pieces from everywhere to apply to my needs. Jewelry is probaly the best analogy...just enlarged jewelry with a less precious metal.
The Home Shop Machinist magazine Rick mentioned is not a bad place to start. Like FWW it publishes bimonthly. It has a sister magazine called Machinist's Workshop that comes out in the intervening months. They sell back issues if you don't want to hassle with a trial subscription. They also have a online forum.
http://www.homeshopmachinist.net/
http://bbs.homeshopmachinist.net/ubbs/Ultimate.cgi
Guy Lautard sells an ongoing series of books called The Machinist's Bedside Readers, along with other books, plans, castings for several tools, videos, and even some fiction.
http://www.lautard.com/
Lindsay Publications specializes in reprinting books on a wide variety of older tchnologies. Some of them were state of the art when they were originally published, some were pretty fringy even when they were published and are outlandish now.
http://www.lindsaybks.com/HomePage.html
These three sources probably account for 80 or 90% of what I think I know about metalworking.
With regard to cutting metal with woodworking tools, it can certainly be done, but IMO it's Exciting! I'm not a big fan of Excitement! in the shop. Depending on what you're making and how many pieces you need to cut, aluminum and brass are easy enough to cut that a sharp hacksaw is a good way to avoid a lot of Excitement! in the shop. IMO.
Thanks for the info.
Is there any way to "join" two pieces of aluminum without having a welding set up designed for that metal?
You're right about the excitement than can occur when cutting aluminum with conventional carbide blades. I suppose like everyone else, over the years I have cut alum. from time to time without incident. But just once, and I know not why, something got caught up, and I had some of that "excitement" you're talking about.
After that, I went out and bought one of those blades supposedly designed for cutting alum., and was told I should not have any more kickback problems. But is that true?
>> Is there any way to "join" two pieces of aluminum ...
You can buy a kit for soldering aluminum. Never tried it myself. I've seen one (probably unbiased) review that says it can be made to work, but it sounded like it might be very sensitive to technique.
I've also seen a discussion of using epoxy to make joints with a fairly large surface area. That technique called for milling out much of the joint surface so there was a very thin layer of glue around the edges but a fairly thick layer in the middle.
I've seen references to exotic adhesives used by the aircraft industry, but I don't even want to think about paying for any of that stuff.
What kind of joint do you want to make, and what load would it have to carry?
>> ... was told I should not have any more kickback problems. But is that true?
Haven't used it since you bought it? I would expect it to help. But you'd probably want to take all the precautions anyway.
Is there a special kind of hardware you want to make out of aluminum or is it the metal you have the most experience cutting??? Get a negative hook blade and try cutting different metals with it. For thinner stuff you can sandwich it between plywood. The aluminum is the noisiest of the metal I've cut. I recommend a face shield versus safety glasses. The chips are on the warm side. I've trimmed 2" x 2" bars of brass because we didn't have or could'nt get the exact size we needed. I've actually been more uncomfortable ripping some hardwoods than metal. but then again the saw was 10 hp and it was case hardened oak versus cutting the brass with my PM 66 or the 1-1/2 contractor saw. Zinc, bronze, brass, aluminum, copper all cut nicely. I use a lube like a wax or WD40 with some aluminums. Each allow reacts differently.
>> ... the saw was 10 hp and it was case hardened oak ...
More Excitement!
Joining aluminum can be done by riveting, screwing, bolting,etc. very easily. Welding or brazing on the other hand require some experience and a good grasp of the technique involved. Most aluminum joinery now-a-days is done with a mig welder, a fast and efficient method that requires a special setup.
My advice : precut the pieces you want to join and run them over to a welding shop.Yes,I made it. No,not hard. Yes, a long time.
"A lot of furniture hardware is architectural jewelry anyway."
about ten years ago i made a set of solid sterling knobs with hand engraved rosettes for a super-high-end buffet (side board?) and dining table. a friend of mine made the furniture for some hollywood bigshot. the pieces also had intricate veneering (as i remember, some of the most spectacular curly and birdseye maple i've ever laid eyes on, and ebony? details) with 0.10" wide silver 'banding' inlaid throughout and wherever the silver track would cross over itself i engraved the joint to give it a under/over 'basketweave' effect.
another really cool thing about the table was that it had several leaves to lengthen it and the latch mechanism used polarized magnets connected to a lever at one end of the table. turn it one way and it locked the leaves together- the other way pushed them apart. it all rode on bearings so it was very smooth and quiet. this guy was always coming up with funky stuff like that. he finally got sick and tired of the high maintenance clientele and became an art photographer where he continues to do some incredibly creative things.
m
I read what you said about gut feeling and it's true for myself also Dunc. A small metal bandsaw and a nice belt/disc sand with a pliers is what I use for the small parts.
Brass does not bend worth anything while aluminum is the opposite. A very versatile metal in woodworking, light and strong. Thanks for those links!- ogee
Actually brass bends quite well with the right techniques such as heat, a bending brake, hydraulic press, v-groove. There's also a PBS show called the Metal Guyhttp://www.themetalguy.com/ http://www.artmetal.com is pretty good and there's more. Not nearly as many as there are for wood as metal doesn't hold the same fascination it seems.
There is solder for aluminum. Haven't tried it myself but any good welding supply place should have it.
I think brass lends itself to furniture very nicely. It works easily with basic wood tools so you are already most of the way there. Sure there's steel and aluminum but it's not as simple a crossover. Get a negative hook blade and try cutting brass . The negative hook is commonly used on radial arm saws because it produces less kick back. I've ripped strips of a 1/4 x 3 x 3 brass angle with no excitement. There's different alloys which make a difference in your excitement level. You can use a jigsaw to get started. For $200 you can get one of those horizontal/vertical bandsaws for doing straight and curves. Brass taps easily and when you learn how to silver braze you open up a whole new world. It's good to start of with soft solder but there is little strength to make structural things like hinges. Small amounts of brass can be gotten from http://www.mcmaster.com http://www.smallparts.com and many other places.
http://www.metalwebnews.com
Edited 6/7/2004 8:31 am ET by rick3ddd
I cut metal on the TS using a 10" x 3/32" abrasive circular blade from Flex-O-Vit. It cuts steel. brass, aluminum, etc. and is fairly flexible so it doesn't break or shatter. You can buy them at some welding shops. Also I use the side of the blade for sharpening garden tools.
Hi Rick,
Beautifull piece. I would love to see a pic of the whole thing. I love work that involves tastefull mixed media; like stone/wood, metal/ wood, leather....
Mike
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