Only 300 more cuts to go

[Walney Col]

0.5mm brass 20cm square 436 inside cuts and I'm beginning to wish I'd never started :roll:

Col.

 

[Chippygeoff]

You must have the patience of a saint. It will look lovely when it's finished, especially as it is in brass. I am thinking that if that was in thin ply you would stand a chance of one or two pieces breaking off, which would be a terrible shame when you got to the 427th cut out. What sort of backer will you put on that and what colour will it be. will you also frame it. Looking forward to seeing the finished project.

 

[Bryan Bennett]

Stunning ,looking forward to see the finished project.

Bryan

 

[nadnerb]

Fair play to you, I don't think I would have the patience for that but I admire your talent!!
Regards
Brendan

 

[Claymore]

Looks interesting Colin and can't wait to see if finished! you have the patience of a saint
Cheers and happy new year
Brian

 

[Walney Col]

Thanks lads. It does take a bit of patience. What you see done is probably around 4 hours worth so far and at least the same amount to come so nothing happens very fast, apart from mistakes. :-/

I've got the brass backed with 1.5mm ply from the model shop and so far 2 sets of 2 cuts were so close together that it ripped the plywood out from between the 2 sets of cuts but the brass itself is still intact. I'd have liked to have used a 3mm ply backing specifically to try and avoid that but I swear the local hobby shop only orders it one sheet at a time and 1.5mm was all they had.

The general idea was to put a sheet of lightly sanded acrylic sheet in between the the ply backer and the brass then install a set of led lights to shine upwards through the bottom edge of the acrylic to illuminate it from the inside. Whether I do that depends on how good condition the backer is in when I've finished.

Oh yes, if anyone's interested I'm cutting it all with a sandvik 302-81s spiral blade which is new to me and has been quite a revelation. I disliked them intensely when I first tried them on plywood but it cuts through brass through brass like it's going out of fashion. I've snapped one blade so far (my fault) and I've worn 2 others out. I initially tried using some metal-specific straight blades but there was no way I was going to be able to spin the work piece fast enough or accurately enough to get round all those tight turns.

The only problem with a spiral blade of course is that every dead-end cut has a rounded end to it but us sawyers are probably the only people who would even notice it.

Col.

 

[Walney Col]

Progress...

This is the plywood side of course, the brass side still has the pattern on.

Col.

 

[Claymore]

Superb Colin and can't wait to see it finished... don't know if i have mentioned this before but for a good supplier of perspex and loads of other crafting goodies try these http://www.hindleys.co.uk I have dealt with them for years and great company, they have a excellent free catalogue too.
Cheers
Brian
ps Hindleys also sell Brass sheet etc

 

[nadnerb]

That looks really good. Col very realistic and life like. Make sure you have plenty of cat litter!!
Regards
Brendan

 

[novocaine]

very nice, have you looked into electo etching as a possible alternative? would take about 20 minutes then, at 0.5mm thick there is no reason you couldn't go all the way through. :lol:

 

[Walney Col]

Today's progress comprises lots of whiskers and part of a frog.

Some of the whiskers are only about 0.01" thick so cutting has to be done super slow and delicately. In line with my usual practice I've now got 6 3/4 hours worth of video of this thing getting cut out and with the best will in the world even I wouldn't watch it.

+1 on electro etching btw, I'm not sure what the best method of making such a complicated stencil would be but if I had to do another I'd definitely look into it.

I already have that supplier in my favourites folder Brian but if I remember rightly their perspex only goes up to a few mm (5 or 6 I think) and to be sure of getting sufficient light coming up through the bottom edge I went for 12mm thick (which I'll frost myself) with diamond polished edges which I found on ebay. The A4 brass sheet also came from an ebay and cost about £6 including delivery which (seeing as I don't plan on doing another) is quite a saving over buying the lager sheets.

Col.

 

[gilljc]

lovely work Col, nearly finished now. I must admit that when I have to cut anything as fine a whiskers, I go back to straight blades for them, I'm not good enough with a spiral blade for that
Did you get pattern from spittin image woodworking? just tried to download some patterns that I have bought from them, and they keep coming up as invalid files

Looking forward to seeing the finished piece, sounds like it will be a true work of art.

Gill

 

[Walney Col]

Did you get pattern from spittin image woodworking? just tried to download some patterns that I have bought from them, and they keep coming up as invalid files

With hindsight I wish it had occoured to me to use a normak blade for the whiskers as they've come out a little lumpier than I'd have liked. And yes, I got the pattern from spitting image woodworks and the download didn't work for me either. I just emailed the owner and he apologised sent me the file via email instead. Not very professional I suppose but when all said and don't he's a scroll sawer not a web designer so I didn't mind too much and his stuff is very reasonably priced.

Col.

 

[gilljc]

yep, got patterns via email, he is having problems with his website, but hopefully he will get it sorted, nice to find a different source with some new patterns, as you say very reasonably priced
ps, I had to enlarge image to notice if whiskers were lumpy looking, they're not - only to you cos you saw original pattern.....

 

[scrimper]

Unbelievable! This looks an impossible piece to cut and then to make it harder you are cutting it in brass! Now I read you are using spiral blades! I honestly don't know how you do it, IMHO spiral blades are the most difficult to use even on a simple basic piece so I cannot imagine how you can cut this out with them! Top marks I say.

 

[Walney Col]

Phew. I won't be in a hurry to do another of these.
Four broken blades and 2 blunt ones later the cutting if finally done. I'll post a photo of the brass later when I've separated them.

Col.

 

[redalpha3]

What an excellent piece of work. You must be very patient!

 

[Walney Col]

I think I've got a genuine 2 for 1 here.

The backing ply separated with the minimum amount of fuss and looks quite usable either as an independant piece or on the same piece of perspex as the brass one to give a choice of how you want it to appear.

The back of the brass has several large burrs (especially on thin "peninsulars") that will need to be flattened and/or sanded before it'll attach to the perspex nicely but that was only to be expected.

I'm quite pleased with it. More to come as and when I've sourced some small LED lights and made a plinth to house them which might be a few days due to the weather not exactly playing ball.

Col.

 

[Claymore]

looks superb Colin and agree weathers bit bad at moment! we are getting a real battering up here (we live on top of a hill overlooking sea/fields) expecting to see plenty of down trees in daylight (always seems worse when its sodding dark)

 

[Walney Col]

looks superb Colin and agree weathers bit bad at moment! we are getting a real battering up here (we live on top of a hill overlooking sea/fields) expecting to see plenty of down trees in daylight (always seems worse when its sodding dark)

We're down for 50+mph winds for the next 6 days at least. I have an electric chainsaw chainsaw but not even a shrub within the length of it's cable so there's no advantage to bad weather for me at all!