You know, Meesa Bob, you beddy smot main. You got BEEG IQ! You wan be litch, Meesa Bob?
Posted on 05/26/2006 10:33:30 AM PDT by ronaldbizworld
I heard on the radio today that you are very good at the game of Golf, scoring multiple holes in one.
Congratulations. I have often said, "It isn't luck if it's what you intended to do."
No thanks. I've heard about their eating habits.
Sorry, never mind. I don't think I could adjust to the change in lifestyle.
Besides, I wouldn't want anything to come between me and what I think is most important in life.
planning out the fabrication of the "spoon-shaped" pommel cap is beating me up, so I'm going to chnge gears and knock out the guard (tsuba) next.
I don't plan to replicate the ornate carving of the original.
rather, I'll do a little math and derive the shapes of the piecings needed to reduce the weight of the blank from 8.0oz (minus the hilt's oval) to 5.2oz
It is a matter of proportions, so math and simple shapes is the way to go here.
8.0 - 5.2 = 2.8oz
2.8/8.0 = .35
so, I must remove a hair over 1/3 of the blank's current VOLUME. as it is a flat cylinder, I can treat this proportionally as a surface-area problem. thus, deriving the geometry of the piercings will be relatively easy (remember, I have AutoCAD as a tool... I'd not like to do this with a pencil, even though I could)
Ah, the engineering mind...
Do you think the tsuba is a forging? Would it have enough strength as such?
I don't know whether it is a casting, a forged billet, a hot-stamped billet, or a machined/tooled billet.
seriously.
it is, however, STEEL, not iron, and plenty strong.
yep.
coupled to a blistered hand with sore knuckles.
Hmm. Yes, that sounds likely.
That's quite a work of art. Attention given to the finest detail.
I guess this would be the easy way to do it.
never done ECM.
I've done wire and die-sink EDM. hated grinding the graphite dies... blech!
ECM looks pretty easy, if you have a pattern to follow.
And flexible enough even if you don't.
It also looks like something that could be set up in a garage or workshop -- but don't let me interfere with your "current" project.
It rather reminds me of the old C. L. Stong setups in Scientific American's "The Amateur Scientist." Quite possibly I even remember it from there.
ECM and diesink EDM are nearly pointless/automatically counterproductive if doing small batch jobs on easily machinable materials - the time and expense of making the tooling outweighs the utility of the machining technique.
The key is "easily machinable materials." That piece of artwork you have, as you said, is steel.
I was thinking of just a crude copy, perhaps cast in Plaster of Paris, and then to a reverse copy in brass. Use the brass as the positive to machine the steel to.
But that is only if you wanted to recreate, or create, an artistic variation. The geometrical design will be awesome, I'm sure.
steel IS easily machinable, compared to, say, titanium alloys (which tend to gall and are absurdly springy), or magnesium alloys (which can be a major fire-hazard), or even hard cast iron (which tends to brittleness).
it isn't as easy as, say, aluminum, but it ain't difficult.
the geometrical design will be *simple* - the space between arc sections, with ends full-radiused.
That's not late for me. Actually, I'm on a little earlier tonight. :-)
http://ils.unc.edu/~allen/1assortedtsuba.html
http://ils.unc.edu/~allen/2assortedtsuba.html
http://ils.unc.edu/~allen/3assortedtsuba.html
Assorted Tsuba.
A few appear to be brass or some such.
Some are simple, other ornate.
http://ils.unc.edu/~allen/4assortedtsuba.html
OOps, missed one.
Hi Darks.
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