Jeremiah Watt

Back in part 1 of this tutorial we discussed the methods of making an item in silver literally JUMP up off of the surface of an item that you make. It is a really simple process of cutting a scroll shaped form, and then pushing the scroll form up and out of itself………sort of like push up Popsicle.
Now have you given any thought to just how many places that you could then use this form of raising items in silver and steel. I know that it can be done because I have done it in both. And why does the form have to be a scroll, now that you have tried a scroll and understand the format of cutting with the smallest saw blade possible, then lift/push an entity of the design up or down to create the look that is needed to achieve the desired effect.

Tonight however we will work on the application of the scroll forms that we talked about and built earlier in and apply them to the concho while in the flat. Part #2.

Photo by: Jeremiah

Lets begin with a design for a Saddle Concho which is adorned with a series of the raised scrolls. Each concho will have a total of 4 raised scrolls for this tutorial. Most modern saddles have 6 conchos on them, so we need 24 of the raised and pushed scrolls of the appropriate size to complete the design. I have used 14 gauge silver for the scrolls so that I can get a lot of lift in each scroll form. These are then set in place and medium soldered into place around the center. On this particular concho design we will adhere the concho to the surface of the saddle by way of a screw down thru the very middle of the concho dome. Now I happen to like this look on a Concho, while I know that others do not……….yes I know so, because they told me just that!!

Once the soldering is done and the concho’s have had time to sit and pickle to a nice white, we can then start the cleanup. With luck if the soldering is good, the cleanup will go quite quick. On this particular set of conchos I actually bead-blasted the surface first to get a nice even finish that would adhere some Antique which I will apply later. After the bead blast, I then hit them on a coarse wheel with Black Emery compound. When making this pass, I did not try to get into every crack and corner, because I wanted some surface to hold the color which I will apply later. Once the Black Emery stage was done, I put the conchos under my Bonny Doon hydraulic press and by using a male dome and a very soft urethane sheet I domed the concho blanks right into the urethane and had very little if any distortion. All I had to do was work around the edges a wee bit to tighten up the radius of the curve as it came to the lower edge.

Photo by: Jeremiah

With the doming done, I head to the Ultra-Sonic and give the items a good hot cleaning while I get other things ready like the steel sub base for each concho. For the base, I bought heavy bridge washers as are used in heavy timber frame style of construction projects. We cleaned the surfaces down to a smooth matte finish. From that stage we set the table on the Bader 2’ x 72” Belt Grinder and cut the bevel on each steel base. Each of the bases was then inlaid with a radial pattern of silver stripes and cleaned up to a matte finish again.

Now we get to do the hardest part of the whole concho project, and that is create the inverse dome that the screw head will countersink into. Let me explain, we will need to pick a screw size, so for this project I choose a #10 size PAN HEAD screw in Stainless Steel. From that we can measure the head with some Calipers and add to the actual screw head dimension to the total of twice the silver thickness and .050 as extra.
SCREW HEAD DIA + 2 times silver thickness + .050 = the diameter of recess we create

Now we can take a round rod and drill a hole in its end that matches the diameter callout that we came up with above. Don’t worry about how deep you drill the hole, just drill it and we can get on with it. Place the rod into a vise standing up, with hole facing up as well. Now hunt for a dapping punch that matches the diameter of the actual screw head or very close to it. Place the silver dome over the rod with it facing up as well, and place the center of the dome over the center of the rod, place the dapping punch on the center most point and tap lightly, and check the location for accuracy. If it is on the mark, then hit it a little more each time and increase the depth to the extent that the screw head will sit down inside comfortably.

NOTE, there is NO HOLE DRILLED THRU YET FOR THE SCREW TO PASS THROUGH, we invert the screw and check for fit. If we drill the hole to early, it will stretch when doming and no longer fit the screw tightly. With thie particular set of conchos it required 4 scrolls per concho be soldered into place. Thank goodness it was a six string saddle and not an old time 8 string saddle I was making…………..because I was getting tired of cutting and forming scrolls.

Well, there you go with what came of the 3D scroll project. The saddle is done and living quite comfortably I might add at an Italian Villa. I will expound later on the other items I made for this saddle with the 3D scroll effect and the engraving process.

Good night America, and God Bless,
From:Jeremiah

Photo by: Jeremiah