[tsterling]

Here's a small art basket my wife and I just finished. I engraved and carved the shibuichi (Japanese precious art alloy of copper and silver) round, and my wife did the woodturning and weaving (all the hard parts ).




2.5 inches diameter (6.4 cm), 1.5 inches tall (3.8 cm), ziricote wood, shibuichi metal, superfine carriage cane weave

Thanks for looking!

[Don Barnhill]

Very nice. Thanks for sharing the photo. Makes me want to get back to work.

[magnus homestead]

Hi Tom,

I like this piece very much - I tend to love your basket pieces and this one has a nice elegance. I would also like a peek inside.
One thing that I do find distracting from the quality is that I can still see turning marks on the lid.
Blessings,
Magnus

[tsterling]

Thanks for the kind words, guys!

Clive and Magnus, ask and ye shall recieve! Here's the lid off:


Magnus, the turning mark you see is a small decorative cut I made, that came out a little smaller than I had intended once the sanding was done. Trust it to be obvious only when the photography is done - just goes to show you that the last little problem can only be discovered when the work is finally in front of customers....

[Karl Carvalho]

Aloha Tom,

Another nice one. Is the shibuichi patinated (and ratio/alloy mix)?

Regarding sanding lathe work... don't know your equipment, but one of the best investments I've ever made is a variable speed reversing lathe. I can take the surface to 4/0 steel wool, add detail with a honed, 55 degree detail scraper and polish out fine lines.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/koolau_arts/s...ith/3279863382/

Karl

[tsterling]

Karl Carvalho, on Dec 1 2009, 04:25 PM, said:

Aloha Tom,

Another nice one. Is the shibuichi patinated (and ratio/alloy mix)?

Regarding sanding lathe work... don't know your equipment, but one of the best investments I've ever made is a variable speed reversing lathe. I can take the surface to 4/0 steel wool, add detail with a honed, 55 degree detail scraper and polish out fine lines.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/koolau_arts/s...ith/3279863382/

Karl

Hi Karl,

The shibuichi is 15% silver, the balance copper. I just used Birchwood Casey Super Blue (cold gun blue) as a patina, then steelwooled the high spots back to bare metal. The purchaser will need to gently use a pencil eraser occassionally over the years on the high spots as the metal ages (remember using pencil erasers to shine pennies in school when you were supposed to be listening to the teacher?). A full rokusho patina would just make the whole surface a dark grey, and that would dissappear in the dark wood. Besides, I rather like the pinky-bronzy (good art term, that!) look of shibuichi, and using shibuichi lends an air of sophistication that copper would not. Plus, I really like the way it carves - copper is kind of "gummy" and shibuichi is a nice hard bronze. Of course, I often work in steel, so hard is a relative term....

As far as sanding, my little Sherline doesn't reverse (something I have wished for over the years), but considering the piece in question is a little over an inch in diameter, sanding is problematic at that size no matter what I use. At that size and smaller, just the wood pores of even a fairly tight grained wood like ziricote can overpower your sanding. The area of concern can't really be seen in the hand and in normal light without magnification - and that pretty much sums up one of the great difficulties of photography, rather than seeing art in person and without visual augmentation.

[Karl Carvalho]

Aloha Tom,

Thanks for the quick answer. I can understand the subtleties of working in that scale, especially the photography. There is a bronze alloy from Rio Grande that you may want to check out. It has such rich warm color, patinas in a wide range (think of that Zeus statue) and good physical characteristics...I can see it working for Celtic designs. Only comes as casting grain, but is easy enough to form your own sheet stock. Maybe Dick knows of sources.

Karl

http://www.riogrande.com/MemberArea/Produc...e+casting+grain

[David]

real nice! and how nice you do this together!