[sdiy] Easy Magic! (Swirling Panels)

[harrybissell]

The origin of Damasking is from a process called "Damascus Steel" which was
used in early swords and firearms.  It consisted of hot-forging by heating,
beating the
metal into thin sheets with a hammer... then folding it in half and
repeating the process.

(much like we do with our modules....)

The appearence of the finished metal was often swirled or marbled in
appearence...
considered very beautiful... if sometimes a little weak in spots.  (most
people with
Damascus barrels on their guns no longer fire them....  ;^)

H^) harry

Cynthia Webster wrote:

> Thanks Ian, John, Terry, Simon, Jim and Harry!
>
> So... This technique is called "Damasking"
>
> cool!
>
> (prolly because the inventor was tired of all the damn people asking!)
>
> LOL!
>
> > Valve Grinding Paste
>
> Hmm...
> Haven't heard of this before maybe this is an English um, thingie?
>
> I suppose I could try Pearl Drops abrasive tooth polish if I had to!
>
> LOL!
>
> As far as random patterns it's all I can do without an XY mill table
> for my drill press.  but, if I actually ~did~ get an XY table,
> I could hook up some High-Power LFO driven servo motors to it
> and make interesting patterns in the aluminum with different waveforms!
>
> This would work much better than that Square Wave driven Toaster...
> (Ok, I should've put an inverted output to keep the toast from burning!)
>
> LOL!
>
> Thanks guys!
>
> Cynthia
>
> > I don't know the name, but one method that is in my mind from some
> > where is using a wooden dowel with an abrasive grit.  I imagine that
> > little pieces of round emery cloth glued to the end of a dowel would
> > also work.  I think the idea of the grit is that you can keep adding
> > grit to keep the abrasion consistent.
>
> >> Hi Gang!
> >>
> >> I just thought it would be fun to share a
> >> technique I just discovered.
> >>
> >> In the process of making a little adapter box, I scribed lines onto
> >> the soft thin aluminum panels of one of those Radio Shack plastic
> >> and metal enclosures.
> >>
> >> After drilling out the holes, I tried erasing the pencil lines
> >> I'd scribed, only to find that micro abrasive bits in the eraser
> >> made an awful indelible "smudge" on the panel!  Yikes!
> >> (It looked awful, and I couldn't find a way to smooth it off)
> >>
> >> I thought well, let's "make lemonade out of lemons" and chucked the
> >> pencil in the drill press as if it was a drill bit, and then ran
> >> the panel around under the drill press while spotting
> >> the spinning eraser down momentarily onto the aluminum every
> >> quarter-inch or so, (5 MM ?)
> >>
> >> It made those really cool machined aluminum swirls that you see
> >> on race car dashboards and fancy machine shop items! Wow!
> >>
> >> A normal machine shop uses some special bit or tool for this,
> >> and of course runs the panel precisely along the X Y table of
> >> a milling machine for evenly spaced swirls...
> >> But I just discovered that lots of ~randomly~ placed swirls
> >> created by a spinning pencil eraser actually look really cool too!
> >>
> >> (Who wouldda' thunk it?)  LOL!
> >>
> >> Best Wishes!
> >>
> >> Cynthia
> >> Slayer of Solder
> >>
> >> http://www.cyndustries.com/
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> Hi Gang!
> >>
> >> I just thought it would be fun to share a
> >> technique I just discovered.
> >>
> >> In the process of making a little adapter box, I scribed lines onto
> >> the soft thin aluminum panels of one of those Radio Shack plastic
> >> and metal enclosures.
> >>
> >> After drilling out the holes, I tried erasing the pencil lines
> >> I'd scribed, only to find that micro abrasive bits in the eraser
> >> made an awful indelible "smudge" on the panel!  Yikes!
> >> (It looked awful, and I couldn't find a way to smooth it off)
> >>
> >> I thought well, let's "make lemonade out of lemons" and chucked the
> >> pencil in the drill press as if it was a drill bit, and then ran
> >> the panel around under the drill press while spotting
> >> the spinning eraser down momentarily onto the aluminum every
> >> quarter-inch or so, (5 MM ?)
> >>
> >> It made those really cool machined aluminum swirls that you see
> >> on race car dashboards and fancy machine shop items! Wow!
> >>
> >> A normal machine shop uses some special bit or tool for this,
> >> and of course runs the panel precisely along the X Y table of
> >> a milling machine for evenly spaced swirls...
> >> But I just discovered that lots of ~randomly~ placed swirls
> >> created by a spinning pencil eraser actually look really cool too!
> >>
> >> (Who wouldda' thunk it?)  LOL!
> >>
> >> Best Wishes!
> >>
> >> Cynthia
> >> Slayer of Solder
> >>
> >> http://www.cyndustries.com/
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
> on 12/6/03 9:39 AM, Ian Fritz at ijfritz at earthlink.net wrote:
>
> > At 07:12 PM 12/5/2003, harrybissell wrote:
> >> john mahoney wrote:
> >>
> >> Ian,
> >>
> >>> There are still hobby/shop magazines?!
> >>
> >> ( H^) harry added )
> >> and you admit READING them ???    :^P
> >>
> >> <bfg>
> >>
> >> H^) harry
> >
> >
> > LOL!  Yeah, and cover-to-cover to boot.  :-)
> >
> > I've even read big chunks of the Machinery's Handbook!
> >
> > Ian
> >