Hammered metal over a mold ?

[bob_s]

I remember an old post about someone making hammered looking parts out of thin sheet metal using a mold cut on a bot and a rounded bit to form them?
I have searched everywhere here and on vectric's board and cannot find it. Does anyone have any suggestions?
I'm after an antique look to use the parts almost like shirt pockets with a logo on a cabinet front
Thanks
Bob

[jTr]

Bob,
Non- bot response, but, here's what I've done to generate hammered copper:
Grab cheap air hammer. Grind down pointed chisel to something that resembles the end of a ball-peen hammer. Place metal sheet on concrete floor - sometimes a good idea to deliberately lay over cracks to add lines of interest. Lay into it with the air hammer. It is actually quite fun as you catch the rhythm of that air tool bouncing randomly around. In very short order you'll have an authentic hammered sheet of metal.

That's my preferred method of getting hammered!:D

jeff

[hespj]

It might have been me who mentioned doing this - I certainly have done it.

The project I'm thinking of at the moment (there might have been others) was a large 5 or 6 person corner chair. It was largely made as a hollow steel shell but with some solid forged steel infill. The chair was modelled in Rhino and for the parts we're talking about here - the cabriole style legs for instance - formers were modelled (to inside of 3mm or 1/8" shell) and then these formers machined on the ShopBot from wood or MDF. The formers also had the outlines of the plates that were to be formed over them engraved on their surfaces.

Sticking with the legs as an example, the legs were four sided and dxfs were sent to a laser cutter to cut 3mm or 1/8" mild steel sheet for the sides of the legs. After using Rhino's "unroll developable surface" command of course.

With the steel parts (BTW, I think all the steel of the chair was laser cut) back at the workshop and the formers machined a steel part would be heated to red hot and hammered to shape over the former. I need to give credit to my brother here who is a very skilled blacksmith. It's no easy task and I think the parts might have needed a bit of tweaking after coming off the formers. That is, I'm not sure how feasible it is to get the steel to match the former exactly because of springback.

From there it was a case of welding all these shaped 3mm parts together and then making good the weld.

Thinking about that last remark, maybe it was 4mm - 3/16". That would leave more room for an edge radius. But it would be even harder to work. I'll ask and I'll try and find some photos.

BTW whilst the "frame" of the chair (you'll have to see it) was steel, the seat and the backrest were timber - all ShopBotted of course.

I'd also add - just to give a different perspective on the uses a SB can be put to - that I've probably made more money from making jigs and formers on my SB than I have on other items. In fact one large former for vacuum forming a hydro turbine virtually paid for the ShopBot.

John