making screws

I could have had my ebony and aluminum brooch done a long time ago, but I didn't work at much of anything between Xmas and New Years. I worked on it a little last night, I'll probably finish it tonight.

I made the silver screws for it a few days ago. As far as I know there aren't any suppliers that sell sterling screws. Reactive Metals sells silver plated screws, but I want solid sterling screws. Anyway, I think it's better to make all the components of a piece myself.

I made up this process a few years ago. I don't know if there are better ways to do it, but this works for me.

Most of the screws I make or buy are 0-80. For 0-80 screws I make the head of the screw out of straight rod, I think I used something like 2.5mm diameter. I drill a 1.2mm hole in the center of the rod on my lathe.


I then tap the rod. A pin vise makes it easier to hold the rod. I use taps from McMaster-Carr. I have some from Reactive Metals Studio, but I don't like them as much as the ones from McMaster.


I tap the hole as deep as I can, about 1/2" I think.





After I am done tapping, I set my tube cutting jig to about 1.5mm and cut the rod into little 1.5mm pieces. After each piece I cut off I file the end of the rod flat and put a tiny chamfer on the corner so it looks nice before cutting off the next slice.


Next I make the threaded shank of the screw out of 1.6mm wire using a die.


It's good to straighten the wire before starting. I am kind of lazy and the wire was mostly straight. Straight enough that it would be ok once its cut in to 5 or 6mm pieces. If I was making a longer screw then I would take the time to properly straighten the wire by putting one end in a vise and pulling the other end before cutting the threads.


I hold the wire with a pin vise and thread an inch or inch and a half, then cut the threaded wire into pieces. Add about 1.5mm to what ever length you want the screws to be. After every time I cut a section of wire off I file the edge of the wire before cutting the next piece off. You will never get the screw to go in if there's a rough bur on the end from sawing it, and its easier to file the end when it's still attached to a longer piece of wire. After cutting off several pieces I thread the wire some more and cut off more sections.


Next the heads and shanks need to be screwed together.


Since I filed the end of the rod and threaded wire after each time I cut it, every piece has a nice end. If the screw is held vertical, with the head at the top, I put the screws together so the nice end of the head is the underside, and the nice end of the threaded rod is at the bottom, with the rougher ends of both pieces at the top so it will be easy to file them both flat.


Next I solder the pieces together. I embed the shank of the screw in a magnesia block so I don't have to worry about solder flowing down the shank, and put a piece of solder on the head of each screw.


I use my flexshaft like a lathe to clean up the screws. I have a little piece of threaded rod I put in my flex shaft to hold the screws while I work on them.


I file the top flat then sand the top and sides of the screw head. I then cut the slot in the screw with a jewelers saw and polish the head.


Finished screws:

more work on the ebony and aluminum brooch

My goal is to finish all my unfinished pieces this winter, but I ended up starting something new last night. It's a lock pick. I make so many lock picks, but they are all the same couple designs. I'm sick of doing these same designs cause I could do so much more with custom lock picks, but most of my customers don't want to try anything new. So I started on one that's totally different from the other designs I have done. Lock picks don't normally take too long to make, but this one's going to be much more time consuming.

I also worked on the ebony and aluminum brooch. I haven't worked on it much since I wrote about it last cause I had other things to do. Last time I worked on it I finished shaping the aluminum part and put a texture on it with files.


Last night I made the sterling back plate for the ebony.


I also drilled the holes for the pins (or screws, I haven't decided yet) that will help hold the aluminum part. I will also use epoxy to hold the aluminum part. The pins will make it stronger and also hold it in place so I don't need to worry as much about the aluminum piece shifting before the epoxy dries.


The plate on the back will be attached with either pins or screws. Which ever I use I will also use some epoxy on them.


Since you cannot solder to aluminum, I have to use screws to attach the top part of the pin back. It was kind of difficult getting the little sterling plate to conform to the shape of the aluminum. The larger diamond shape drawn on the aluminum is a tracing of the sterling plate. After taking the photo below I burred away the area inside the smaller diamond. Burring away that lump made it easier to fit the silver to the curve of the aluminum.


After getting the sterling to fit a little better I drilled holes in it and the aluminum, then tapped the holes in the aluminum. Then I screwed the sterling piece to the aluminum and hammered the sterling directly on the aluminum until there were no gaps between the silver and the aluminum.


Next time I work on this piece I will finish making the pin back, make the screws to hold everything together and maybe anodize the aluminum. I still don't know what color to make it.

yesterday

Yesterday I mostly worked on fixing the problem with one of my pieces that I mentioned at the end of my previous post. It's an issue that comes up with the aluminum occasionally. I don't really understand it and I don't want to talk about it.

After that I worked on the aluminum and ebony brooch. I continued shaping the aluminum part, drilled a hole in the ebony for the aluminum part, and shaped the ebony part some more.


I should have done something different early on in the process that would have made things much easier. Before I started carving the aluminum part I should have put it in the lathe and made the bottom of the thing cylindrical so it would be easy to just drill a hole in the ebony and put it in.



Since I just free handed it with my micromotor it's not round. Which means after I drilled the hole in the ebony, I had to use a wood carving bur (pictured below) to try to make the hole match the shape of the aluminum piece. Doing that sort of thing is never easy. And of course what I ended up with was there being a gap between the aluminum and ebony in some places. Now I am trying to figure out the best way to make it look good. I wonder if my explanation makes any sense?

Speaking of wood carving burs, I think these spiky ones are so cool. I also like that they come in different colors. But they can totally tear up your fingers worse than any thing else I have experienced.


Keeping with my decision to finish all my unfinished pieces this winter, I decided to give up on finish this spoon in the photo below. It's not finished to my standards at all, the casting is so bad I think it would be faster for me to just remake the piece rather than try to fix all the pits. But this piece isn't important enough to remake.

I am not sure if I wrote about this spoon at all before, I carved the wax around 2000 or 2001 during my 4 year wax carving spree, and cast it in three parts in 2007. I don't know what happened with the casting, but two of the parts are just terrible. I worked on it for a while and finally put it aside cause I didn't want to deal with it. So now I just want to call it done and not worry about it anymore. I have no plans to photograph it any better than the photo below.

something I am working on

Here are some photos of a piece I was working on recently. It will be anodized aluminum and ebony. The design in my sketch book is dated January 2009. I am not sure when I started making it, but I didn't get very far before I stopped. I started working on it again last week. I'm trying to finish all my unfinished pieces this winter.

I like this design, so I'm not sure why I stopped working on it almost as soon as I started. The ebony part was mostly done, but all I had done on the aluminum part was roughly cut it out with my band saw. So last week I started shaping the piece. I like carving these kinds of things, but I am tired of the mess it makes.




After getting it mostly shaped with burs, I used files to get between the points and smooth out the areas I had burred. The pliers I am holding the piece with in the photo below are locking parallel pliers. I am a big fan of tools for holding the things I am working on.


The shape is mostly done. I still have to refine it.




The bottom part is ebony. I did most of the work on that piece when ever it was that I started this piece.


I'd like to just get this piece done, but I had a set back with a commission and have to spend some time redoing something on that. I hate having to redo things.