Latticino

Well had a long post regarding this written, then the system crashed when I tried to upload a couple of images. Won't try to recreate the whole post, but am thrilled to announce that I tried my first forge weld in my low pressure, natural gas fired forge and was successful. The local experts said it couldn't be done... The forge is a modified compressed air tank from Harbor Freight, with a Kane Bros 140 CFM blower and industrial grade burner, mixer and zero pressure regulator. Lining is 2" of high temp blanket with furnace cement and ITC coatings. Bubble alumina trough will hopefully resist inevitable flux deposits. Images uploaded are of the forge in a slightly earlier incarnation, it now has a high alumina brick hearth and I use a similar brick to close down the rather too large opening. Forge gets up to a good yellow heat, just enough to weld the mild steel I tried without burning it at all (will add pyrometer when I get to final piping, current layout is just for testing). I used Black Magic Flux and kept my surfaces clean. Still working on the atmosphere mix as even though I had a pretty long reduction flame exiting the opening I still got more scaling than I liked. Very excited. Next step Cable Damascus...

Very cool. Was this forge welded, or did you go for stick? Were you able to keep the ratcheting action functional?

Albert is a visiting professor/instructor up here in Rochester, NY at the School for American Crafts at RIT. There are a fair number of his larger sculptural pieces around town to check out. I have attended lectures and met with him several times over the years. A wonderful, down to earth individual with a lot to say not only about technique, but also inspiration,the creative process, and the business of being a successful craftsperson. He is very approachable and willing to answer questions. If you have only seen his architectural ironwork I urge you to check out his early jewelry as well. It is interesting to see the design progression in his work. Personally I prefer his earlier ironwork over the more recent "painted ribbons", but that may just be my smithing bias and I'm sure others perspective on the aesthetic differ. His new sculpture is now up to a monumental scale that probably requires structural engineer's input on wind loading and the like. Horrible shame about the accident, but he seems to be bearing up pretty well. Would be great to see him with Mark and Uri. I'm certain they each have very different perspectives on the craft.

I assumed he did a total of 5 folds: a trifold - 3 x 15 layers= 45 layers a double up - 2 x 45 layers = 90 layers