Caged bean pendant inspired by pawnee1

Ok, I'm dying to know.  How'd you get the bean in there? 

He is a blacksmith, nuff said.

 

He used a magic bean 

 

He grew the bean plant and put the seed pod inside the cage.

 

Lots of possibilities.  (grin)

thats cool good work. what size stock did you use?

So...I used 3 1/4 finish nails, it is power brushed (wire wheel). I used Johnson's paste wax and a rag to finish. I used four nails, twice twisted then opened. As for getting the bean in...well, if you really want to make these, well, that's part of the joy of blacksmithing (solving a problem). When you discover the answer you will also discover it's absolute simplicity. The bean is a Jacobs cattle bean. We have been growing them for years on our farm, with the same seed stock (open pollinated).

Thanks Glenn,

 I have been asked before if I was a blacksmith (horseshoer), but I have never been called a blacksmith before...thank you.

He does it cold

I really like this!

Dave

My question is Was the bean moist when you placed it inside the cage? If not, how did you keep it from burning up?

good basket twist

Philip,

I first tried to put the bean into a hot basket by wrapping it in aluminum foil placing it into the basket and throwing the whole mess into the water bucket. By the time I  peeled the foil off the bean  the bean was soaked just enough that the skin slipped. So I tried another method which worked.

Nice bean pendant. Don't you just love the questions folks ask trying to figure out how it was done.

 

Mmmmm, high powered bean shooter from 10 paces?

 

Frosty the Lucky.

My guess....

is...

the bottom four pieces were not forgewelded together at any stage... He did the top, did the twisting and what not with the bottom lot tacked together, Ground off the tack, opened the four pieces up enough from the bottom, for the bean to fit in, put it in, closed it, mig welded it and ground it.

Just a guess!
 

Nice work! Very cool!!!!

 

:)

Alec

very well done!  i really like the shape of it and the basket is very nice!

 

my guess would be that the basket was left open enough on the last heat to let the bean slip in and then twisted back together cold (it works on small wire projects, i dunno how well it would scale up to something that size in steel no less though...)

 

Alec's mig weld theory might hold water too, the weld on the bottom does appear a little different than the one on top.

 

i think the next one should be done with a kernel of popcorn (unpopped!) and then we can keep guessing :)

Chinobi!
 

I LIKE YOUR IDEA!!! Makes a lot of sense! 

 

Not sure if I should stick or twist with my bet...... 

 

I will stick to my first instincts.... MIG ;)

 

Ahaaa

Alec

I would guess cold twisting the final step.
 I suppose you could also wrap the bean in thick paper (or thin cardboard) and quickly pop it in before the final twist, you might be able to quench it before the paper burned through, but that would take some quick precision.

Cool and interesting pendant! Like it. Very creative and opens a lot of possibilities like putting birthstones or beads. Well done!

I made a few more of these the other day. Screwed one up...the bean wouldn't fit, so I went out on the lane found a pebble that would fit, finished the thing...it looks pretty ok.

My guess would also be cold twist. Hot twist to shape just a little over sized to fit in the bean and then cold twist to finish.

 

Or not.

 

Really neat work.

 

Mark <><

would like a pic of the rock one added. It would be interesting to see what other media looks like inside.

Here's a few pictures of the pendant with the pebble inside, finished with brass patina.

that looks awsome dude!  i love the size relationship between the pebble and the caged volume of the twist, theres very little extra space so it looks really clean, almost like the pebble is growing within a cable and busting it up as it expands.

 

that would probably look pretty awsome with a marble in the cage too :)

(im getting kind of stir crazy because it feels like it takes forever to get back to the anvil for me :( )

Chinobi, the pendant with the stone was closed down tight (while cold as are the others) around the stone (no movement) when I do a bean I like to hear the bean rattle, somewhat like it would when inside the pod.

got to try my hand at one of these on saturday, used 14 gauge copper electrical wire, wasnt quite set up right to try to properly forge weld the copper so i ended up just melting it together.

 

started with one piece about 8 inches long and bent it in half and fused both ends, then halved it again and fused those ends.  wasnt doing a very good job tapering so i put a rough brazeal type hexagonal ball on the lower end

 

That turned out pretty nice. Copper forge welds pretty easily, a light dusting of borax and it welds at a medium to bright red. Get it at temp and you can weld it with a pair of pliers.

 

Frosty The Lucky.