Piercing

[Sandra]

I've been away so long I feel SO rusty and new at everything. I've been looking at pierced designs and often see beautiful pieces done with fine lines, such as thin swirling vines or stems for flowers. I have become fairly proficient at piercing but this is one area that still eludes me. I can saw the line easily enough, however it will be too thin to be attractive. It's also too thin to fit a file into, and sawing a bit more off an edge usually leads to unevenness that can't be filed smooth.
I am still using my first original pack of saw blades I bought with a beginner's kit from Cookson, are there wider/thicker saw blades to use for this purpose or is the only way to thicken a line is to continue to saw the line wider?

[Paul Kay]

Sandra, this shows you the thickness of each blade size (click thumbnail to enlarge):

9397

[Sandra]

Oh thank you, that's great information. I believe the blades I have are 2.0.

[Goldsmith]

Sandra the blade size really relates to the thickness of metal you want to pierce, to get good piercing I find that you need to have the pattern drawn or engraved on the metal, if you are doing the modern method of sticking a printed paper design on the metal and then piercing, the quality will never be perfect. You can use a saw blade like a file to widen cuts just pierce down the line then pierce again with the blade slightly tilted and you will widen the cut. Another tip is when you want to pierce into and out of a narrow inner angled pattern, pierce ito the point from your drill hole, pull the blade back to your drillhole, then back the blade into the first cut and pierce away from the tight angle along the second uncut side. This is easier to show than explain.

My butterfly wings were mostly 1mm. metal and I used 3.0 and 4.0 piercing saw blades for the inner cuts.

James

[Dennis]

You did explain it once in the past James, but could you briefly explain again, how you transfer a detailed design to metal for piercing? Many thanks, Dennis.

[Goldsmith]

You did explain it once in the past James, but could you briefly explain again, how you transfer a detailed design to metal for piercing? Many thanks, Dennis.

Hi Dennis, my method is quite simple and effective. first I polish the surface of the metal to a bright finish, then clean any grease off the surface, then I paint the surface with white poster paint and let it dry. I draw my design on tracing paper then sellotape it to the painted metal with a sheet of carbon copying paper between the design and the painted metal, then I draw over the design lines with a hard pencil which transfers the design onto the painted metal surface, I remove the tracing paper and carbon paper. Then I used a steel pointed scriber to draw over the pencil lines, when finished I wash off the poster paint and the design is scribed onto the polished metal surface which makes it easy to see, for simple designs I then pierce along the scribed lines, but for complicated designs like butterfly wings I usually engrave the lines lightly before piercing.

For large patterned pieces with a repeated design like on the lampshades I made, I draw and pierce copper patterns which I then use to mark out designs with a sharp scriber before piercing.
Like these;
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James

[Dennis]

Thank you James. I'm starting a new project. It won't be that tricky, but with more precision than I usually need.
It looks as if we will be advised to hoard carbon paper, as it will no doubt go out of use soon. Dennis.

[Paul Kay]

No need to panic buy the carbon paper yet Dennis, it is still used extensively by graphic artists in all shades from white through grey to black and colours too.

[CJ57]

I was also taught this method at ECA but we only went as far as transferring the design from the tracing paper onto the white poster paint which also worked quite well if the paint isn't too thick the design generally didn't come off. Our designs were not as intricate as James so it was adequate for the job in hand

[Sandra]

Some great info here, thank you! I have tried gluing paper onto the piece, I even tried several different types of glue but came to the conclusion that it doesn't work very well. Last few things I've made were hand drawn with permanent marker but they didn't need to be very precise.

[Goldsmith]

I found a folder, dated 1986, with some of my old butterfly drawings that I drew for marking out the wing piercings. The second picture is a photocopy of some butterflies pierced and drilled for stone setting after being plique a-jour enamelled.

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James

[Ralph G]

Using paper glued templates for saw piercing is not ideal but it can be made to work. The biggest problem with using paper is that it tends to "fuzz" when you saw it and esp on very thin sections the regular craft glue tends to come off sometimes. A neat trick I use is to glue it down with thin cyanoacrylate glue (the very thin variant, almost as liquid as water) I spread out some superglue on the metal and then lay on the paper from the top. because of the thinness of the glue it will soak completely into the paper and will lock down all the fibers - unless all other glueing methods I tried. This way you can make a clean cut and the cut line will look as sharp as if I made it on pattern directly transferred to metal.
To remove the paper put it into jar with some acetone. takes 2-3h to dissolve the glue. If you are in a hurry you can remove the paper & glue by just heating it gently with a torch until the paper burns off - this might sound messy and prone to extensive cleanup afterwards but surprisingly will leave only very minimal residues and the metal will be fairly clean afterwards.

Alternately you can use the "cold toner transfer" (just do a search on youtube) to transfer patterns to metal.

I still mostly use the superglue method - this is quick and works very well for me.

[Aurarius]

Using paper glued templates for saw piercing is not ideal but it can be made to work. The biggest problem with using paper is that it tends to "fuzz" when you saw it and esp on very thin sections the regular craft glue tends to come off sometimes. A neat trick I use is to glue it down with thin cyanoacrylate glue (the very thin variant, almost as liquid as water) I spread out some superglue on the metal and then lay on the paper from the top. because of the thinness of the glue it will soak completely into the paper and will lock down all the fibers - unless all other glueing methods I tried. This way you can make a clean cut and the cut line will look as sharp as if I made it on pattern directly transferred to metal.
To remove the paper put it into jar with some acetone. takes 2-3h to dissolve the glue. If you are in a hurry you can remove the paper & glue by just heating it gently with a torch until the paper burns off - this might sound messy and prone to extensive cleanup afterwards but surprisingly will leave only very minimal residues and the metal will be fairly clean afterwards.

Alternately you can use the "cold toner transfer" (just do a search on youtube) to transfer patterns to metal.

I still mostly use the superglue method - this is quick and works very well for me.

I've successfully used self-adhesive "label" paper designed for computer printing. It sticks very well indeed to clean and smooth silver sheet even when you've sawn so much metal away that there is very little of the paper left stuck to the metal. Just remember to peel off any protective film on the metal before you stick the label to it, otherwise your design will begin to part company from the metal when it is very inconvenient for it to do so.

[Sandra]

I've successfully used self-adhesive "label" paper designed for computer printing. It sticks very well indeed to clean and smooth silver sheet even when you've sawn so much metal away that there is very little of the paper left stuck to the metal. Just remember to peel off any protective film on the metal before you stick the label to it, otherwise your design will begin to part company from the metal when it is very inconvenient for it to do so.

Ah thanks, I never thought to use self-adhesive paper. May just give that a try next time around.