Metal Geeking

Describe MetalGeeking here.

There are all kinds of things you can do with Metal! and if you think you know more then me, feel free to edit and deleat things that are not corect on this page. Jewelry[1] Welding[2] Casting[3] and [4] Black Smithing [5] Knife makeing [6]

[1]You can make jewelry out of Copper, Brass, Silver, Gold, Bronze, Tin, Pewter, Lead, Aluminum (altho, I do not recomend useing Lead, or Aluminum for things that will tuch your skin, and becarful, while cutting, fileing, or melting either one, for they can make you really sick, and kill brain cells) and there are all kinds of ways that you can make jewelry out of pieces of metal, from very simple wasy, such as, bending a bit of wite, in to a loop, and calling it a ring, or soldering said wire, in to a shape, to make it slightly more complecated, or soldering more, smaller pieces in to desired shape (this works best, and is cheapest, with copper or brass wire, and silver solder (like what is used on copper water pipes[99])and a soldering iorn, or very small torch) or you can make rings, with a hack saw, copper or brass pipe, a file, a steal rod, and a small hammer, and maybe some nails, or punches, if you want to make a patern (here I am asuming that you don't have a proper set up for doing all of this, and just want to make someting pretty) If you want to display a rock, or other small hard object, for something like a neclace, what I have done, is basicly made a ~net or web of wire, around said object, out of wire and soldered it all together.

[99] Just to be painfully accurate, ordinary water pipe solder is actually composed of tin and antimony and contains no silver. Silver solder is a different critter, as is electrical solder, which generally contains lead as well. Chris B.

[3]If you have tools for melting down metal, you can also cast jewelry, useing sand, or plaster molds.

[2]Welding is the proces of joining two pieces of metel, or filing the gap in, or between a piece, such as a crack in something, or a small hole, with more of the same kind of metal, it can be done useing a Torch (really hot flame, burning Oxigen, and some other flamible gas) and useing a filler rod. An Electric arc welder... have you ever seen the spark that is made by electricity? well that, only on a larger scale, is what happens, and it gets hot enough to melt metal, then useing a speacail wire, or matal welding rod, you melt, and fill the gap of the two object you want to join. THERMIT welding, is done by burning powedered metals (such as Aluminum, and magnisum) and Iorn oxide, then pouring the liquid metal in the gap to be filled. and the coolest of all (in my opinion) is forge welding, and that would be, where you heat the two parts to be joined, untill they are a liquid, and join them together, and let them flow in to each other.

[4]Casting is taking hot, liquid metal, and pooring it in to a mold, letting it harden, and removeing it from said mold. for a mold such things as, soft/oily sand, plaster, cuddle fish bones, wood, metal, and I am sure some things that I don't know about, have all been used befor, the basic idea is, make an emty space in what is to be your mold, in the shape of what you want your end object to be, leave an opening in the mold to pour metal in, and a few smaller ones, to let air out, and pour your metal of choice in to the mold... (there are entire books, and web pages that tell you more about how to do this, so unless someone has some personle expearnce, that they would not mind sharing, I will not go in to more details here, unless of course, you have questions, for I am sure we could come up with some sort of answers)

[5]Black Smithing... it's fun, I'll add more, unless you get around to it, I've done a little, it was fun, I want to do more sometime.

[6]Knife Makeing I've done some really nice knives, and would love to learn how to do more kinds, like how to make a folding pocket knife, how to temper blades, a good place to get used steel, how to keep the blade cool while grinding it, more good ways to make handles are also alwas welcome, tho, I have made some cool handles, and will try to get some photo links up sometime too.