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Posted

Anyone have suggestions on ways to make a vase? i made a bunch of steel roses and decided they needed a vase to go along with. i tried using square tubing turned out ok, but cant seem to spread the top into a funnel shape very well. same with muffler pipe, tried spreading it over the anvil horn, but wasn't very sucessful. any tips/ideas wouldbe greatly appreciated.
Thanks!

Posted

I can only guess what size tubing you may be working with but since you are having little luck flaring it I will assume that it is thin-wall tubing. It will be difficult to create much flare in thin wall material because you lack the depth to thin... thus stretching, the material much more than it starts out. What you CAN easily do though is to neck down such tubing, which will thicken the walls and give a sort of negative flare shape. So when using thin-wall material start out with diameters close to the desired finished diameters and neck down the narrow areas. Conversely when using thicker-wall materials you would want to begin with smaller diameters and flare to get your larger diameter areas.

Another suggestion is that when working on thinned areas they will cool out VERY quickly so reheat often and work FAST when you have the heat... the upside is that such areas also reheat very quickly. Actually stretching the material is prone to lots of failures... your aim should be to forge it thinner by squeezing it down to thinner thicknesses... in other words mash it thinner rather than stretching it over the horn or other mandrel (you still use the horn but as a hammer backer rather than as a flaring tool).

Posted

When I made Roycroft style copper vase I start with pipe 2" in diameter.
I then heat and anneal the copper and using a guilletine type top and bottom fuller fuller in an area. This will be the bottom of the vase.
I then use a tappered mandral that has 1" taper in 12"
This fullered piece fits tight at the large end and the fullered end
Then pound down the material so it fits the mandrel the whole length.
We then soldered a sheet bottom on to make it water tight.
You could do this with steel but the tube would need to be hot when you worked it were copper cold be done annealed and cold

Another way to make vase from sheet if you have a power hammer is made a texturing top and bottom dies for the hammer.
I saw beutiful ones made by the guy from TX who now sells Anyang hammers.
With explanation from him I made my dies by taking a piece of 1/2" steel the size of the flat dies on my hammer.
I then welded a the edge of high carbon steel angle iron to this flat.
I then brake the angle iron off leaving a jaged sharpe edge
right next to this weld I again welded the angle and broke it off leaving another sharp variing height strip
I welded again and again till the whole surface was these strips of sharp hills and valleys for both the top and bottom die inserts.

Once the dies are done I heated a piece of sheet steel and ran it through the dies.
This made textured sheet on both sides.
Form this into the vase or box and you have a very nice article hopefully.

Posted

One thing that I didn't mention before is that for most efficient work it might be easiest to begin with a tube that has medium thick walls and a diameter about 2/3s of the desired finish diameter then neck down the narrow areas and flare the wider profile areas. Kind of a middling approach that minimizes the difficulty level and the work involved. It may not always be practical though, so work with what you have but keep in mind which way to move the material so that you do not end up banging your head against the wall.

Posted

As another idea, since it is for steel roses who says it has to be solid? How about a framework in the shape of a vase? Either as a spiral, solid or open or a vertical framework. Or a combination of sheet and bar.

  • 3 weeks later...
Posted

thanks for all the advice. after expermenting with copper and some copper nickel pipe, i decided to go with square tube....it worked and was a little friendlier to work with...
post-23977-0-91698600-1332722617_thumb.j

Posted

Thin walled box channel with repouse'ed sides and a square plug for the bottom - or how about spinning one out of a thin sheet or hydraulic press used on a thin square of your favorite metal using a long rounded point pressing into a collar.

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