Squish the box.

As I'm exploring the distortion of steel I decided to move on from solid stock to box section (main reason being I had some left over in my tool box from last year), box is one of my favorite materials to forge, the shapes it produces I think are mesmerizing.Below are the images of work I did last year, they where made during the same project that had me produce the neon distorted panel, it was a choice between the use of solid stock and box on the final object but as it is hard to come by box below 100mm the solid stock won. (excuse bad images taken with phone)

This is definitely my favorite image.

More recently I have returned to box section in this project, I like the material because it shows off distortion really well, anything that differs from its normal square profile looks drastically different which I think is very affective. This object is very similar to the previous painted piece I made the other week, it consists of several lengths riveted together and flattened at one end using the power hammer, with the use of the box it has caused the edges of the material to pucker and I think it looks awesome.  I finished the distorted area with a brass wire brush to give it and interestingly different colouration.

New forged bits and bobs.

As of last Monday I returned to the forge after completing my dissertation and began to explore distortion once again. I want to continue along the lines of making normality fall into distortion. e.g. a railing that has been melted and distorted, or an everyday object that has been squished. the problem being I have to make the entire object and it needs to be made with the distortion in mind in order to make the item 'work'.  

 The first object I made as a simple piece that used the scrolls that I was inserted in that I showed in the images of my sketchbook, i wanted to see if it would be possible to create a piece that altered peoples ideas of blacksmithing. i needed to test to see if the scrolls would distract from the distortion.

Simply riveted together, 4 pieces of 15mm x 5mm, 19cm long. 2 pieces scrolled to look like tiny metal moustaches and the others just curved. The rivets don't look very beautiful because they where hard to access.

Got Will to help me squish it with a sledge hammer as I didn't want to splat the whole thing under the power hammer. Sadly I missed a couple of times with the sledge hammer and left nasty dents in the ends of the scrolls. 

I would have liked to have forged this out a lot more but the rivets holding it together got super thin and I was worried that they where going to break so I stopped before I destroyed it. I also dished it to make it look more lovely, and also functional which I didn't really want. 

Here is the backside all super shiny and wire brushed.

Photo using my good camera.

Next I was curious and decided to rivet a load of just simple pieces of flat bar together and crush them to the edge of existence under the power hammer. 

The rivet was a tad too long and kept going spaghetti shaped while I was trying to forge it, tho it does hold it together so it fits its purpose. 

Here it is after I squished it using the big power hammer.

Detail of the ends.

More detail.

After completion and taking photos I then proceeded to add my favorite splash of colour to the distortion, I think the colour makes the pieces that contain distortion,it makes it different from the rest.