planishing | Eileen Moylan

Spoon Part 4

03.04.2011 by Eileen Moylan //

This is part four of a series on how to make a spoon.

Click on the links to see Part one, two and three.

The spoon is nearly finished, all the cutting and hammering has been done. All that’s left to do is file and polish the piece. In this post I will go through the different stages of finishing as well as the tools and products I use.

I begin by filing the edges to even out any roughness. Once I’m happy with the shape of the spoon I remove the file marks with emery paper. I use different grades of emery paper from 320 to 1000 so I have less work to do on the polishing lathe.

Then I polish the spoon on the lathe. This is done using two different mops. The first is a roughing out mop which takes out the scratches and marks. This mop is made from numerous circular layers of fabric that are stitched together at the centre. The mop is used along with a polishing lustre. This is an abrasive compound that comes in a bar and is applied to the mop. While this initial polishing removes marks left from the emery paper it doesn’t bring up a bright reflective finish.

The next stage of polishing on the lathe uses a softer mop which is made up of layers of soft fine fabric. This mop is used along with a polishing rouge. Jewellers rouge is a red coloured compound bar that is used in the final stages of polishing. This rouge like the luster is used on the wheel to refine the surface. The rouge helps to obtain a fine mirror finish on the metal.

Because of the shape of the handle I use a small mop on my drill to get into the areas that the larger mop can’t polish. Like the polishing lathe I use the same lustre and rouge to bring up the finish. Now that all the marks have been polished out and the metal is bright and reflective I can clean the piece in the ultrasonic.

I’m going clean the spoon and set it up to be photographed over the weekend so I’ll post the results on Monday.

Spoon Part 2

02.16.2011 by Eileen Moylan //

This is part two of a series on making a spoon. To see Part 1 click here.

Having cut out my spoon pattern I take the rough edges off with a file. I also rounded some of the edges slightly.

Because I will be doing a lot of hammering and forming on the bowl of the spoon I annealed the metal so it would be softer. Annealing is the process of heating and cooling the metal to soften it and make it easier to manipulate. To see my video blog on how to anneal metal click here.

Once the spoon is annealed and cleaned it is ready for sinking. Sinking involves hammering a flat piece of metal into a concave shape which has usually been carved into a tree stump. The bowl of the spoon is held over the dip and hammered into it using a mallet. The mallet hammers the metal without marking it.

The spoon is now taking shape so it is then put on a spoon stake to give the bowl of the spoon more depth and form. This is hammered using a planishing hammer. This highly polished hammer face is used to refine the form and surface on the stake. The stake that I am using for this is called a spoon stake as it is the shape of the bowl of a spoon. This domed stake is held in a vice.To see my blog post on some of my other stakes click here.

The way I hammer the piece is to start in the centre and work clockwise around the bowl until I get to the edge. When the entire bowl has been planished on the stake it is time to anneal it again. After annealing the spoon I will do some more work on the stake and then begin work on the handle. Part 3 to follow…

Models for a spoon

01.24.2011 by Eileen Moylan //

At the moment I’m making a simple child’s spoon to give me the opportunity to try out and show off my new stakes. Through this process I will demonstrate the various techniques used such as sinking, planishing and annealing. The first step involves designing and making a pattern for my spoon.

As with all of my projects I start out by doing my designs on paper and photographing then to play around with the angles and the curves. I have decided on a simple spoon shape so these photos show variations of curves and handles.

Having decided on the design I will use this pattern to outline the shape on the metal. The next step is to cut out this design in metal and using a technique called sinking create the bowl of the spoon.