Roses and Flowers in Copper and Steel

[John B]

This weekends course on flowers in steel and copper proved to be quite demanding, after discussions on what the students wanted from the course, it was decided to do the Rose on the Saturday, and something else on the Sunday, the something else turned out to be a Poppy.

Roses were made in copper and steel, and of differing structures/styles, some having four layers, some five, and all being different, all were then taken home to finish in their own workshops as they saw fit to do, all the students being more concerned with the manufacturing techniques rather than the finishing ones, although these were covered by demonstration as requested on the Sunday.

Again on the Sunday the Poppies were all different, a sample of a previously made one was brought in, critiqued and the design altered which proved to be an improvement on the original.

There was a single layered petal, divided into two parts, and one made divided into four parts, and a double layered petal one.

The centre stamen were a new departure for this particular course, and there was also a demonstration on how to fireweld the sheetmetal leaf to the stem.

I think it was a succesful weekend, I certainly enjoyed it, and I believe the students did too.
The poppy was chosen as opposed to the Daffodil,

[brianbrazealblacksmith]

Very nice John B! That has to be the best results from a flower making class that I've ever seen. Of course, I've always been biased towards forged work. Nice forging!

[John B]

Very nice John B! That has to be the best results from a flower making class that I've ever seen. Of course, I've always been biased towards forged work. Nice forging!

Thanks Brian, I put it down to good students, they all did well

[beth]

ive only done one course before a long time ago but i loved johns teaching becasue not only did we learn some cool ways to shape and texture leaves and design them in different ways depending on how we wanted to attatch them etc, but also i came away with loads of tooling ideas which im very excited about - just simple bits and bobs that i dont have myself and most very easy to make. invaluable really - cheers john! when i make em i will post em!

[Ian]

Some really lovely roses John Was anyone brave enough to try doing a rose from one piece of steel? I've done the russian style roses before at demo's, and found a way to make them a little less clunky by adding the lower leaves under the petals on the last wrap around, but only ever done one by upsetting and chiselling, just too much work and time for what you'd get for it. Fine as a 'done it' project but component roses like those are so much more economical in both senses of the word and they look lovely too. Great effort

[John B]

Some really lovely roses John Was anyone brave enough to try doing a rose from one piece of steel? I've done the russian style roses before at demo's, and found a way to make them a little less clunky by adding the lower leaves under the petals on the last wrap around, but only ever done one by upsetting and chiselling, just too much work and time for what you'd get for it. Fine as a 'done it' project but component roses like those are so much more economical in both senses of the word and they look lovely too. Great effort
[

No single piece flowers on this course,

As for the russian rose, (so named I think because too much rushin' and it breaks off at the stem) I like them for buds, and small roses, but usually weld up and grind off under the head after, Although I have left them as is when doing them as key rings at demos to give out or sell there.

I have attached a grotty pic of one , and a small vase stand I quickly made as a peace offering for one of my students who was keen to be shown how they were made, but didn't really have the time to make one there and then as he would be very late getting back home otherwise. This piece offering worked nicely I heard after.

Hows Your Farm project going? When's the opening forge in?

For the other one piece roses, I find it easier to neck down rather than jump up, then either make it look like a dog rose (Alexandre rose), or cut in all way around to form the layers, notch the edges and adjust as required,

But like you say, far quicker to make them in component form,

[Ian]

LOL, I was given the challenge to make an upset rose by Lina Sundin, a wonderful lady Smith, originally from Norway (who works in Orebro in Sweden). I asked her to show me how to make a rose and I think she was having a little fun with me. Took me a while but I did it and surprised her in the process.
The Farm project is still moving, myself and Sean are having a bad time with the weather at the minute so the actual building works are crawling along but we're making tooling and stuff so its not wasted time. We've had the first version of the contract to look at, and asked for a fair few changes to be made so it's a case of waiting for them to re write it and let us go over the next version. I'm pretty sure we'll manage to come to an arrangement that we're all happy with in time. Basically there's a plan to hold a forge in to coincide with the official opening of the forge when we've got the building finished. It's a bit of a piece of string question at the minute but I'm hoping it wont be more than another month or two. I'll be letting everyone know when we're ready so that as many folks as possible can make it over for the day. I'm really looking forward to it. :D