Dennis
17-11-2010, 06:42 AM
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Each year our teacher is challenged to find new projects for those of us who enrol for an extra week of summer school.
Once we were given a piece of iron about 4.0 mm thick and 30 mm square. First we marked the centre on both sides by drilling all the way through it with our smallest drill. Then we made radiating slots only part of the way in and inserted vertical strips of metal in various colours. I chose silver, brass and copper, but it could have been three colours of gold. These were soldered in with plenty of silver solder, using Tenacity No. 5 as flux.
Now the hard bit began. The first task was to file, sand and polish the surfaces, ending up with stripes of colour radiating from the centre. Then we scribed the shape of a ring equally on both sides, using the drilled hole to locate the dividers, cut it out and finished the edges. Below is my effort, scanned in from a photocopy, with pink tissue for background, a quick option in the days of film.
One poor soul put the nearly finished ring horizontally into a vice for more filing. There was an ominous cracking sound as it went into pieces. The end of a perfect afternoon. Dennis.
Each year our teacher is challenged to find new projects for those of us who enrol for an extra week of summer school.
Once we were given a piece of iron about 4.0 mm thick and 30 mm square. First we marked the centre on both sides by drilling all the way through it with our smallest drill. Then we made radiating slots only part of the way in and inserted vertical strips of metal in various colours. I chose silver, brass and copper, but it could have been three colours of gold. These were soldered in with plenty of silver solder, using Tenacity No. 5 as flux.
Now the hard bit began. The first task was to file, sand and polish the surfaces, ending up with stripes of colour radiating from the centre. Then we scribed the shape of a ring equally on both sides, using the drilled hole to locate the dividers, cut it out and finished the edges. Below is my effort, scanned in from a photocopy, with pink tissue for background, a quick option in the days of film.
One poor soul put the nearly finished ring horizontally into a vice for more filing. There was an ominous cracking sound as it went into pieces. The end of a perfect afternoon. Dennis.