Report by Bruce Freeman
The February 4th NJBA membership meeting was held at
Eric Cuper's studio in Easton, PA. This proved to be
a spacious shop with forges, hammers, metalworking
machines, and a high-water line seven feet up the wall
from last year's floods. Eric assures us he now knows
how to remove his equipment to high ground on a few
hours' notice
Our demonstrator was Rick Smith of Southern Illinois
University. Rick demonstrated sheet forming and
repousse. Rick's method of sheet forming is the
classic fine repousse. Rick moves more volume creating
more abstract shapes and forms. It involves creating
volume while the metal is hot then defining form and
edges cold with stakes and planishing. Although his
finished pieces on display were all quite angular -
almost like cityscapes - he begins a piece by sinking
it over a hollow. (Some members may remember John
Rais forming a dish of heavy steel in a similar manner
at a demo a few years ago at Peters Valley.) Only
after the metal is sufficiently stretched does he
introduce the angularity.
On the following day, about nine of us attended a
workshop to explore and try these techniques. Mostly
we relied on Erics equipment for this, but Marshall
Bienstock and Bruce Freeman brought up a couple forges
and vises, as well as some stakes of various sorts.
Eric used his landlord's power shear to cut the metal
into ~12" squares. We had 1/8" and 16-gauge steel
available to us, but apparently most of us chose the
former, which is harder to work but less likely to cut
through.
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As Rick had demonstrated, we first sketched our
intended design with soapstone or paint pens onto both
sides of the sheet of metal. Next we stretched the
metal in the appropriate areas by sinking at a red
heat. To define edges, we reversed the metal sheets
and worked over the square, but not sharp, edge of a
stake, using half-faced blows.
As we achieved defined the shapes further, we used
tools Rick had brought along to better define the
edges. These were typically ~1/2"-square, punch-like
tools, with a slight incline at one end, and a square,
but not sharp, working edge. In some cases, square
edges were defined by upsetting from the two
directions.
The results were quite varied. Most participants
imitated the angularity of Rick's work, but few of us
tried more "organic" forms. This workshop was
enthusiastically received by the participants, and
Rick seemed quite pleased with the progress made on
projects. There was general agreement that the
workshop had been very worthwhile.
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