Popular Post Mick S Posted July 18, 2018 Popular Post Report Share Posted July 18, 2018 Not a journal (again), but a quickie project to make use of some aluminum castings I did for a metal/wood class a while back. I used up some scraps of cherry, mesquite, ambrosia maple and walnut. Did a little wire brushing to add some texture to the shelf trim and the curved side rails. Replacing a 20 year old rubberwood (pará) stand from Target. 8 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
..Kev Posted July 18, 2018 Report Share Posted July 18, 2018 Very cool piece! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Coop Posted July 18, 2018 Report Share Posted July 18, 2018 Really neat looking Mick! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chestnut Posted July 18, 2018 Report Share Posted July 18, 2018 How do you take so many different species colors and woods and pull them together and make something beautiful? Every time i try and use more than 1 species it comes out looking garish or heavy handed. So the sides are the aluminum? How in the heck did you make those? I think they look awesome. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RichardA Posted July 18, 2018 Report Share Posted July 18, 2018 Okay Mick, enough of making us all look like 101 woodworkers, screw something up so we can all breath easier. Damn nice job, and you know I love Ambrosia Maple.. 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mick S Posted July 18, 2018 Author Report Share Posted July 18, 2018 1 hour ago, Chestnut said: How do you take so many different species colors and woods and pull them together and make something beautiful? Every time i try and use more than 1 species it comes out looking garish or heavy handed. So the sides are the aluminum? How in the heck did you make those? I think they look awesome. The colors of the species I used all complement each other - reds, browns, etc. I just hit this with Danish oil which tends to diminish the contrast and bring out the warmer tones in each of them. The sides were done from a basswood mold I carved, then used the oil-sand casting technique. They came out too garishly bright for my taste, so I applied a black wax and buffed it off the resemble cast iron. They're pretty heavy - about 6 lbs each. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wdwerker Posted July 18, 2018 Report Share Posted July 18, 2018 Looks great ! That's a quickie ? So you have access to a foundry ? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
drzaius Posted July 18, 2018 Report Share Posted July 18, 2018 I could make a bad joke about your definition of a quicky, but I'll leave that to the imagination But that is a great looking stand. Please let us know more about the side panel process. I love multimedia projects like this. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mick S Posted July 18, 2018 Author Report Share Posted July 18, 2018 2 hours ago, wdwerker said: So you have access to a foundry ? 1 hour ago, drzaius said: Please let us know more about the side panel process. The class was called Material Study: Cast Metal and Wood. The hardest part was drinking enough beer to yield 12 lbs of recycled aluminum for my project.. We used various materials to make a mold that we then sent off (address below) to have cast using the oil-sand method. In a nutshell, you make a form or mold that is placed into the bottom frame containing the oil sand mixture down to roughly 1/2 its thickness, then apply the top frame, packing the same oil-sand mixture around the top half of the mold. Remove the top half, remove the mold and reset the top half onto the bottom. Fill with molten aluminum and let it set up. Remove the piece from the mold, rinse, repeat. The process yielded surprisingly great detail in the finished piece. Individual pores in the wood were obvious. On the left is my mold. On the right is the 3rd piece I ordered, before applying the black wax. Again, I carved a piece of basswood, sprayed it with auto primer, then waxed it so the sand wouldn't stick to it. The tabs are the tenons for attaching it to the rail mortises. The piece is 18" overall height and shrank about 3/16" in the casting process. As a class, we combined our projects and sent them off to LA with return shipment boxes included. The whole process took maybe 2 - 3 weeks and on average cost us each about $150 - $200, including freight both ways, and pretty much independent of whether the project was one piece or five. My 3 pieces were right at $200 with freight. Some of the students got very creative. One used cholla cactus that he cut and epoxied into a relatively flat Y shape. We had our doubts about how well it would cast, but it came out great. One of the instructors cast some table legs in ash with sort of a modified elliptical cross section. The grain pattern of the ash just popped. He wound up waxing his also and it was stunning. 2 hours ago, wdwerker said: That's a quickie ? Other than the castings, which have been in my garage for over a year, it was a two-day build. I had a frame partially done from the class, but scrapped it and started over. All Domino construction. Here's the contact info for the foundry if anyone wants to try it. Great folks to work with. Alphacast Foundry 826 S. Santa Fe Ave. Loas Angeles, CA 90021 213-624-7156 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chet Posted July 18, 2018 Report Share Posted July 18, 2018 Very cool how it all came together. I am like Drew and struggle with the multi-spieces projects. You make it look easy. Quote 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chestnut Posted July 18, 2018 Report Share Posted July 18, 2018 24 minutes ago, Mick S said: The hardest part was drinking enough beer to yield 12 lbs of recycled aluminum for my project.. LMAO ... i have some aluminum car parts that might make better casting aluminum and saves the nasty hangovers ... Similar but different. I'd love to try and do some carbon fiber molding as well. The look and feel is a lot different but it doesn't seem, at least from the outside, that the mold making is drastically different. So many things on this site have made me go from "How in the eff" to "Yeah i could do that". 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tom King Posted July 18, 2018 Report Share Posted July 18, 2018 Gorgeous!!! and thanks for the foundry address. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
drzaius Posted July 18, 2018 Report Share Posted July 18, 2018 Apparently DIY anodizing & dying aluminum is a thing. That opens all sorts of possibilities. And it's extremely durable. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mick S Posted July 18, 2018 Author Report Share Posted July 18, 2018 Here is another student project from that class. Not the sculpture, the table legs. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
difalkner Posted July 18, 2018 Report Share Posted July 18, 2018 As usual, very good work, Mick! I love your attention to detail. David Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mick S Posted July 18, 2018 Author Report Share Posted July 18, 2018 4 hours ago, drzaius said: Apparently DIY anodizing & dying aluminum is a thing. That opens all sorts of possibilities. And it's extremely durable It is, but there are also a couple of places around here that will anodize. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pkinneb Posted July 19, 2018 Report Share Posted July 19, 2018 Really nice Mick! You really have an eye for design Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Geoffrey Posted July 19, 2018 Report Share Posted July 19, 2018 Nice! The texture on the shelf trim really complements the aluminum casting. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mick S Posted July 19, 2018 Author Report Share Posted July 19, 2018 One last photo in its permanent home. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pkinneb Posted July 20, 2018 Report Share Posted July 20, 2018 43 minutes ago, Mick S said: One last photo in its permanent home. Nice! Great looking desk too Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
treeslayer Posted July 20, 2018 Report Share Posted July 20, 2018 Looks great Mick, I remember that desk, still looking good did you journal that? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Coop Posted July 20, 2018 Report Share Posted July 20, 2018 Mick, the table to the left that’s barely in the pic, has that been shown on here before? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mick S Posted July 20, 2018 Author Report Share Posted July 20, 2018 34 minutes ago, K Cooper said: Mick, the table to the left that’s barely in the pic, has that been shown on here before? Yes, here. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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