Thursday Samples

I went in on Thursday really hoping to get a few samples done under the Massey to maybe understand what i was looking at a little more. I never expected to have a day where everything just went my way, it really was one of the days that reminded me why im here doing this degree. But enough about how well it went lets look at the samples i did.

This is a single piece of 40mm round bar cut off at roughly 100mm. I got it up to a sparking heat then put it under the Massey for a shorter time than the others i will be showing. It was the first and in my mind the best because it showed me exactly where i wanted to take this year. Now this one is so unrefined compared to the others but there is little clues to what i saw, the ripples in the steel on the buckle points and the huge expansion on the bottom. The ripples are what i want to concentrate on because they are what i think I am really starting to chase to find what i love about them. Something about how they are wrapped around the steel is so fluid, it really shows off the movement and plasticity of a materiel that lets face it isn't that easy to move.

This is another piece of 40mm round section cut off at around 90mm. Why this one was so crucial to me was it was the point where i had used too much control rather than let the steel do what it wanted to do. I turned it on its side and started working the hot steel on 4 sides, after i had quenched it and brushed it down i knew i had gone too far. I think that working from the top is what I am after, working the other sides loses the detail in the ripples. I will try a few more samples like to see if i can find a happy medium but so far I don't like it.

This is a piece of box section cut off at 80mm and pressed under the Massey. Using box section was a real change to the round section i had used the first few times. It kind of came out of no where because i was only intending to sample a little bit of round but then Ambrose brought me some spare section and I gave it a go. I really like how it ended up but there was something missing, the ripples in the steel were more exgaretted than any of the other samples but this one looked too worked for my eye. I wanted to try one that was less worked to see how it would look so i did.

This is a piece of box section cut off at 110mm then worked under the Massey. Hit the nail on the head with this one, quenching the top section before putting it under the hammer changed the look of it all together. The ripples on the bottom coming down from the smooth box section was well for lack of words sexy. It was like a more literal version of what im trying to do with the round. I would like to experiment some more with box section and see about maybe quenching top and bottom to see what i can do with it. Working progress this one.

This is a piece of 35mm square section cut off at 100mm and worked under the Massey. Using the square section was a spur of the moment and it changed what im looking for in these pieces. I really like the ripples in the bends but a straight line going in to them just like this square or the box really brings them out more. I tried another sample to see if it was just a happy acident or the square section was bringing out the line.

 

This  was the last sample of the day. Its a piece of 35mm square section cut off at 80mm. I love this one because it didnt bend so much as warp its shape, the sharp lines stayed and really told a story of what had happened under the head and pressure. The top picture is my faveriote because it shows the line in motion. Square section is something i want to work in more maybe later on with the sampling.

That is all of my Thursday samples, look forward to baby samples later on.