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tline3open  The die making process.....

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Author Topic:   The die making process.....
Scott Martin
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Posts: 11520
Registered: Apr 93

iconnumber posted 03-03-2016 08:46 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for Scott Martin     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
The following was inspired by part of the discussion found in the thread
Old Silver Rings


I know little to nothing about the die making process..... over the years I have learned little bits and snippets.... I believe the terms may require context, both for period (ie. 1700, 1800, 1900, 2000, computer age, etc.) and application (ie. coins, money, jewelry, silver/gold smithing, sculpture, print making, etc.).

And then there are the details of the processes by the contextual doers/craftsmen/experts that are full of nuances (idiomatic terms) that don’t make it into the non-doers/non-craftsmen/non-expert vernacular (dialect spoken by the ordinary people).

Today most of the related terminology is most likely from where die use/making is most popularly seen/used; which to me feels like may be in the coin/mint processes.

I also expect as the tools/materials/techniques evolved so did the terminology/processes.

A very uninformed example might be in coin making, where over sized models of the coin (galvano) are made and then reduced to the proper size using a pantograph or a portrait lathe or a Janvier lathe. But in flatware I don't recall discussion or ever seeing anything that resembles galvanos.

I think we could start a separate forum which could easily evolve into hundreds/thousands of threads on this subject; especially if the discussion was informed period/process contextual discussions. It would be very interesting to learn about the difference in terms/process there were in jewelry/flatware/coin die making over the centuries. I’m not sure our group has the proper familiarly/expertise to do this but if threads like this continue and more members join in I would create the forum and move a related posts/threads into the new forum.


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Scott Martin
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Posts: 11520
Registered: Apr 93

iconnumber posted 03-03-2016 09:00 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for Scott Martin     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
ps. This post really belongs in the General Silver Forum and will eventually be moved.

I did this post here so our new members who inspired this thought and haven't taken the time to fully read the Guidelines could directly post.

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asheland

Posts: 935
Registered: Nov 2003

iconnumber posted 03-03-2016 10:08 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for asheland     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Sounds interesting, Scott!

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Mark4321

Posts: 11
Registered: Feb 2016

iconnumber posted 03-03-2016 04:38 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Mark4321     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
quote:
Originally posted by Scott Martin:
The following was inspired by part of the discussion found in the thread
Old Silver Rings


I know little to nothing about the die making process..... over the years I have learned little bits and snippets.... I believe the terms may require context, both for period (ie. 1700, 1800, 1900, 2000, computer age, etc.) and application (ie. coins, money, jewelry, silver/gold smithing, sculpture, print making, etc.).

And then there are the details of the processes by the contextual doers/craftsmen/experts that are full of nuances (idiomatic terms) that don’t make it into the non-doers/non-craftsmen/non-expert vernacular (dialect spoken by the ordinary people).

Today most of the related terminology is most likely from where die use/making is most popularly seen/used; which to me feels like may be in the coin/mint processes.

I also expect as the tools/materials/techniques evolved so did the terminology/processes.

A very uninformed example might be in coin making, where over sized models of the coin (galvano) are made and then reduced to the proper size using a pantograph or a portrait lathe or a Janvier lathe. But in flatware I don't recall discussion or ever seeing anything that resembles galvanos.

I think we could start a separate forum which could easily evolve into hundreds/thousands of threads on this subject; especially if the discussion was informed period/process contextual discussions. It would be very interesting to learn about the difference in terms/process there were in jewelry/flatware/coin die making over the centuries. I’m not sure our group has the proper familiarly/expertise to do this but if threads like this continue and more members join in I would create the forum and move a related posts/threads into the new forum.




This is a very interesting proposition.
I personally know next to nothing of the process in detail, but I know of a ring maker who -still today- uses the old die striking presses, basically uses the same production methods as back in the day. I will send him a link to this, maybe he'll join! He is truly an expert in the making process of die struck rings, and also knows a lot about investment casting, lost wax casting, etc, and knows how to tell the difference.
Mark
PS I hope it wasn't me that missed something essential in the guidelines? :-)

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agphile

Posts: 798
Registered: Apr 2008

iconnumber posted 03-04-2016 12:57 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for agphile     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
I thought I might share a few photos that may at least be marginally relevant to this topic. A good few years ago now I took some pictures when visiting a spoonmakers’ workshop, including some of the presses used for applying die-struck decoration to flatware. This one shows the biggest press. The shelves behind and to the left of the press hold some of the dies.

The next picture shows Jeff Francis, the spoonmaker, sinking a bowl but the relevance here is the smaller press that can be seen behind him.

So, not dies I’m afraid, but the machines for using them.

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Scott Martin
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Posts: 11520
Registered: Apr 93

iconnumber posted 03-04-2016 01:05 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Scott Martin     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Great. smile

What maker/where was this?

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agphile

Posts: 798
Registered: Apr 2008

iconnumber posted 03-04-2016 06:06 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for agphile     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
C J Vander, London. This workshop no longer in being. Jeff continued more recently with Wakely and Wheeler, one of the old silversmith companies that had been absorbed by Vander but has now been spun off as a separate entity again with its own workshop a little way out of London.

[This message has been edited by agphile (edited 03-04-2016).]

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agleopar

Posts: 850
Registered: Jun 2004

iconnumber posted 03-05-2016 06:29 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for agleopar     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Love seeing the images of a proper spoon maker and W+W. I was there years ago visiting a mate doing his time as a box makers apprentice. Thanks
P.S. The cool thing in the last image, aside from how a spoon is sunk by hand in the lead pancake is the massive amount of Bovril stacked on the shelf!!

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Scott Martin
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Posts: 11520
Registered: Apr 93

iconnumber posted 03-05-2016 11:29 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for Scott Martin     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote

Bovril

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PhilO

Posts: 166
Registered: Jul 2004

iconnumber posted 03-06-2016 02:01 AM     Click Here to See the Profile for PhilO     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Marmite

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agphile

Posts: 798
Registered: Apr 2008

iconnumber posted 03-06-2016 12:52 PM     Click Here to See the Profile for agphile     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Yes, Marmite it is. Must be a dietary essential for spoonmakers if not for all silversmiths? To return to the topic of dies rather than diet, the Wakely and Wheeler catalogue has the following to say about them:

“The dies used in the production of our range of flatware are in two halves. Many of those in use today are more than 100 years old. These dies, first made for specialist spoon makers such as William Chawner in the first half of the 19th century and later for Francis Higgins, are re-cut from time to time to ensure the patterns remain perfectly true.”

From time to time old and presumably redundant dies will appear on the market. I have never tried to buy any but recently I was given a disparate group of dies for knife handles. I suspect somebody was getting rid of stuff he had found interesting but his family thought was junk. Presumably this was on the basis that I would also find them interesting and might be able to hide them from the family for a while.

With these there were a couple of examples of metal struck to form handles (but not from any of the dies I was given!).

The picture shows the two halves of a plain handle, untrimmed, and just one half of a pistol handle, trimmed. If the second half of the pistol version was ever struck, it didn’t survive to be given to me.

[This message has been edited by agphile (edited 03-06-2016).]

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