Doming and Texturing

[bustagasket]

ok showing my noobness again, erm, Whats a Bonny Doon please guys?

[Petal]

Thanks guys - it boils down to preferences really I suppose. Trial and error.

And, Carole, when I have a Boony Doone I'll remember that!

I've tried Googling a Bonny Doone and got strange things in reply! What on earth is a Bonny Doone then??

[MuranoSilver]

It's a press that allows you to shape metal really quickly.
They sell them at Rio Grande in America
(though I used to think it was a small Glen where a Leprechaun who looked like Tommy Steele lived )
nic x

[ben b]

You'd probably want two bits of kit here. A doming block and corresponding punches, which ideally you'd want in wood and metal (the punches!) and some 'stakes' which are most usually used in silversmithing.
You can place a domimg punch in a vice, but stakes are better.

If you are texturing by imprinting with a rolling mill, obviously you have to do that first...you cannot do it once it is domed. Then anneal, and use a wooden punch to dome the tetured sheet, and i would oil the doming block, especially around the outer edges, but clean the piece before annealing again.

If you wish to hammer a pattern, then dome your sheet with the doming block and metal punch, and particularly with fine silver, or just silver generally, rather than gold, this will harden it nicely to keep its domed shape whilst happering pattern to it. For this id transfer to a stake, domed, but slightly smaller than the actual dome, and move the item around as you hit in one spot relative to the anvil (or stake). By even rotation you should maintain the domed profile, though the edges will distort, though you can hammer these carefully, so you controll the line.

If you want a hammered finnish (similar to the hammerite paint effect) then what you are actually doing is what silversmiths do to make a dome, by raising, (rather than doming in a block) only the marks would be removed, but you want these as a feature, so you will be crossing two tchniques here. You will get some re forming of the metal, but not much, as youve already domed and hardened it, your just denting its surface...and this is where hammer skill comes in, both in how hard you hit it, the frequency and direction and crossover of hits, and how confident you are in holding and moving the object as hitting.