Printable patterns

[petere76]

Gents,

I was looking for a good reference book or a web site that features patterns that I can scale for different applications. I usually make my own back plates for door pulls and other surface mounts, nothing too fancy but sometimes I need somerthing a bit different. Fleurs are always challenging for me if I do them freehand, they come out looking a little one sided. When I use a template it works much better. I'm not much of a freehand artist. I'm ok with auto cad or a drawing board but the scaleing on the free hand stuff just escapes me.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Peter

[ianinsa]

Hi Peter,
We have a 'cheat' that seems to work. Despite the fact that my wife is an interior designer and that we have a large library of relevant books, We go to our municipal library and look in architectural books. We take with a digital camera, when you find a picture with a suitable profile you take a snap of it-zoomed to get the 'bit' you want. If the picture is detailed you simply pay for a photocopy but usualy you only want a small piece so your camera helps. Then at home you can enhance and manipulate with photoshop and coraldraw(old versions are virtually free and work just fine if you don't have it.)
I then print out the profile, cut out the shape with a stanley knife, lay the 'skeleton' on my metal and 'dust' it with arosol engine enamel(it resists burn-off). Now when you flame/plasma cut it you just follow the outline of paint.The 'skeleton' can be re-used a number of times too.
Good luck on this Ian.

[petere76]

Sal and Ian,

Thanks for your thoughts. I have a lot of iron work photos from different places in the world and I try and get good ideas from what I have seen out there. I am more of an nontraditional visitor in that regard, taking pictures of grills gates and and the like. In the world of ever hightened security I get more than a few nasty looks from security personnel. I have done a lot of leaf ghosting (paint overspary) to get local shapes as well. I'll keep looking for that book or catalog I'm sure its out there. Maybe CNC programing guides might be the answer.

As a footnote, I recall reading in Dixons " Francis Whitaker's a Blacksmiths Craft Vol I" that the second volume was forthcoming but the publisher (blacksmiths journal) apparently went out of business. Anyone have a lead on this?

Peter

[ianinsa]

Hi Peter,
Try this http://www.ironmongeryhardware.com/door_LeverHandle.htm
Ian

[Dodge]

When looking on line for patterns and pictures, put the word "image" after your search keyword I.E. leaves, images. Depending on the keyword you can get hits with hundreds, even thousands of pictures. Save the image you like to your computer and scale on your printer.

[ianinsa]

Dodge, that's a good call. should have thought of that................Duh
Ian

[John McPherson]

As a freehand artist, I can't draw flies. But there are work-arounds for any artistic shortcoming.

Dover Publications sells paperback books of copyright free images on literally hundreds of topics, and many reprints of old copyright expired books of interest to metalsmiths and artists.

You can still buy tracing paper. With a little practice, you can simplify any image to its most basic lines, blow it up on a copier, and execute the result in metal. Someone did that to make a unicorn gate from an image in a child's coloring book.

[pkrankow]

The Countryside Agency books are linked from here, along with some others.

http://www.beautifuliron.com/links_bks_smith_beginner.htm

Phil

[petere76]

Gents,

Thank you for all the good ideas.

peter