21/01/2019 - Submission Day
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This is my favourite submission display to date.
I made a little church set with the stained glass window that my final pattern was based on. It even had flying butresses to keep it all together. |
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Post-Mortem
I tried very hard to not get attached to the laser welder, as I may never get to use one ever again.
As it turned out, I didn’t find it as “stone safe” as I initially believed it would be. Many of my softer stones were scorched by the heat or damaged by molten metal splash.
I’m also not convinced about how strong a laser welded seam is. Unless you spend a lot of time and use a lot of filler wire, it’s very likely to have cavities which could cause the whole weld to fail.
As it turned out, I didn’t find it as “stone safe” as I initially believed it would be. Many of my softer stones were scorched by the heat or damaged by molten metal splash.
I’m also not convinced about how strong a laser welded seam is. Unless you spend a lot of time and use a lot of filler wire, it’s very likely to have cavities which could cause the whole weld to fail.
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I remain uncertain regarding the suitability of casting for this kind of design. The limitations of the process mean that the smallest castable dimension is around 0.7mm (although I think it's more like 1mm in practice). This means that any design will be inherently "chunky" (at least by my standards). Look at how much more delicate my hand pierced commission is in comparison to the cast piece for this project:
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I must look into wire erosion cutting...
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