A Flock of Birds.

[Dennis]

For London Jewellery Week our department mounted an exhibition of work in the foyer of the college I attend.

I entered my set of jewellery with moonstones http://www.cooksongold.com/forum/sho...re-puzzle.html, which you have already seen and also this bird ornament, made of very thin copper, rolled down to 2.5 mm and textured with fabric. It was easily cut out with scissors and made to imitate paper folding but using only right angles. The rods were 0.7mm steel from the 4D Model Shop and the base was a display block.

If you are interested in origami shapes, folded paper, or once threw darts behind your teacher’s back, have a go. They vibrate at the slightest movement, so photography is tricky, Dennis.

[ps_bond]

That's rather nice Dennis; is there a typo on the thickness of the copper though?

[Dennis]

Yes you are right Peter, There is a misplaced decimal point and it should be 0.25 mm. I re-read it lots of times, but this is why we need editors, something much emphasised by publishers. Thanks for pointing it out, Dennis

[ps_bond]

I was taken aback by the "easy to cut with scissors" description - I was worrying I was doing something wrong!

[Melanie De Castro Pugh]

They're very pretty, Dennis! I have some 0.25mm fine silver sheet, so might have a go at folding it. Mind you, I'm a bit crap at origami but I do make a mean paper plane :-) Mel

[Dennis]

In that case Mel, I thought I would go into the construction a bit more.
Once I had settled on a paper shape, I made some reduced copies on my photocopier. The birds were 33mm from head to tail. The pieces of metal were roll-textured on both sides simultaneously by folding thin curtaining over them, which kept them perfectly flat and then the paper copies were pasted on with Pritt stick.

Now, using a fresh snap off blade and a ruler, I marked all the lines to be cut or folded by cutting through the paper, so scoring the metal. The paper was then washed off and the shapes cut out with largish scissors, for a good straight finish. The exception was the central cut for the beak, for which I used a fine saw blade. The beak was folded down with snipe nosed pliers (naturally), until the edges met almost perfectly without soldering. The other folds which were all at right angles were made by pressing them down on the edge of a steel block.

To avoid annealing any metal at this stage, the ends of the rods were bent to 45 degrees, tinned and soldered onto the inside of the birds with pallions of cored soft solder using a short burst of my mini torch. It was eerie how quickly the solder flowed. I had also considered hanging them as a mobile instead. Dennis.