Working with Iron

[Edward Fleming]

Inspired by Hemmerle I would like to start working on Iron, does anyone have any experience casting and then working with Iron? Is it particularly hard to clean up?

I like the idea of adding patinas to the metal and just working with something different to the normal metals

[ps_bond]

Not on the casting front, but filing & saw work is not so bad on fully annealed mild.

Patination is all well and good, but iron's one of the few metals where a layer of patination will not prevent further corrosion. Usual finishes would be chemical blues, rust blues or phosphates; there are some great examples of multi-colour pattern welded steel around that are usually heat oxides. If you're looking for something a bit different then Mick Maxen's work is well worth a gander; he does pattern welded steel in carbon steels and makes some fantastic objects.

[Edward Fleming]

Glad to hear its not too hard to work with, I had visions of blunting files and disintegrating saw blades.

Thanks for the suggestions. I have been checking out his site, it looks worthwhile getting in touch so I will send him an e-mail. He does mentioned a foundry on the site so maybe he casts too.

There are plenty of examples from Hemmerle, I wonder how they get around the corrosion issue?

https://www.pinterest.com/search/pins/?q=hemmerle%20iron&term_meta%5B%5D=hemmerle%7Ctyped&term_meta%5B%5D=iron%7Ctyped

[ps_bond]

They will blunt faster than silver, but it's manageable. I've been cutting some 5mm steel recently with 2/0 & 4/0 blades - I had started using platinum blades, but they're intolerant to the slightest flexing so they were a bit of a nuisance.

Mick's been involved in some smelting; saw him on TV recently talking about the subject. There's a couple of foundries do lost wax in steel; I'll see if I can find some details.

The black on the iron rings could be a magnetite (or even a rust brown + tea patina), in which case it'll need a protective coating - or it could be one of the baked epoxy coatings?

[Edward Fleming]

Yeah details would be really helpful, I only know of Vipa so far who can do it through a 3rd party.

After a little re-search I think it looks more like a baked coating.

[ps_bond]

Yeah details would be really helpful, I only know of Vipa so far who can do it through a 3rd party.

After a little re-search I think it looks more like a baked coating.

It's a ceramic stucco - still lost wax, but more like the Benin bronze casting method.

I'll try and find the details for the foundry I was looking at; I was thinking of having some stakes made amongst other things (OK, so those wouldn't be wax).