new to forum and rolling mill

[anita]

Hello. I have been making jewelry for years but on a very primitive scale. I love tooling copper and have made some time intensive medallions I would like to transfer some of these designs to some sort of pattern/plate for use with a rolling mill. Is there a liquid or clay type material I could used to make a flat cast of my designs that would hold up to a pass through a rolling mill? From what I read a rolling mill can pick up very fine detail even from fragile items like leaf skeletons or fine fabric weave. Would something like a thin silicon cast be a possibility for making plates of my designs? I know I can order laser cut stencils and use them but I would like an easy way to make plates at home. Something else I have wondered about is using a mill to flatten us coins ... primarily copper pennies and non-silver half dollars and then putting designs on them. Will a rolling mill flaten a half dollar and/or pennies? I am excited to receive the one i've ordered!

[ps_bond]

For roll embossing, you can salt-water etch mild steel plates and use them in the mill (carefully, backed with hardened copper to protect the rolls) or you can engrave them - the etching is OK, but the depth of cut and the heat generated means that fine detail is easily lost.

If you were using a hydraulic press you could make use of metal-filled epoxy to create embossing dies, but that's not going to be feasible with the mill - the thin sections that will pass through the mill aren't going to be strong enough to resist bending and breaking.

As for the coins... I'd be very careful. Modern "copper" coinage in the UK is actually steel cored with a copper plate over it; put that through a mill and I'd expect damage. Whatever you put through, ensure it is annealed first, pickled clean and quite dry.

[medusa]

. Modern "copper" coinage in the UK is actually steel cored with a copper plate over it; put that through a mill and I'd expect damage. Whatever you put through, ensure it is annealed first, pickled clean and quite dry.

I found a penny blocking my washing machine this summer. I was quite shocked at how the copper had worn away and that it was indeed plated and not solid copper.