Hey DMS Familly,
I saw a really cool video last week of a guy doing wire inlay in wood. As I lack the skills to do regular inlay, I felt this might be a fun to try. But, I need a rolling mill to take round wire and convert it to flat wire (aka strip wire). I found rolling mills online, but the price tag of $200 plus made this a serious project rather than a fun learning one.
To keep this in the fun learning side of things, do any of you have a rolling mill that I could try out or be taught on? I would be willing to replace any dies if I harm them, I believe those run around $25 per side (top and bottom). Also, I’m looking for a bit of guidance on where I should buy my wire or if you know of an inexpensive source for already strip wire.
Thanks for any and all help, and if you are wondering what all I’m talking about here is the video and a link to mills.
@wandrson and @Nathan_Jones not sure if I agree with you and not needing a rolling mill. Though, I have not done this before so please do take this as concern, not defiance. I also saw that you could flatten wire with a jewelers hammer, but saw that many were only doing that for about an inch or two. The design I want to make in the long run would require in my estimation about 20 to 30 feet of wire. Is this enough to require a rolling mill? I’m not doing hundreds of feet, instead just tens of feet.
It seems as though I would be running into many issues of consistency at this scale? Am I over looking something I know nothing of? Is hammering really that easy and consistent?
consistency is a concern; however getting ‘good enough’ isn’t too tough. you can hammer with two steel sheets on either side of the wire to get consistent thickness.
30 feet isn’t really a lot of work for the hammer approach if your using soft copper or silver.
That said I would be willing to kick in some for a small rolling mill at the space.
The question is do you want to invest the time into learning how to work the metal by hand or not. If they answer is no, then rolling mill is the way to go. However, if no one has one to borrow, and you don’t want to invest the money, we are saying you can do it by hand.
Is it that easy and consistant? No, but that’s where practice comes into play.
I saw a guy using the roller mill at the Richardson H-F. He must have done about 100’ of wire. After he was done he just left.
I was laughing the whole time because he looked like he owned the place, walking in with a great degree of authority - the wire in one hand and gloves in the other. He was even greeted by one of the HF employees and asked if he needed help finding something. He said he knew where he was going. No one bothered him after that.
Not saying what he did was correct, but… he did get away with it. LOL.
I wish I had the gall to do something like that. It would never go down like that for me. Instead, it would go down like an episode of Louie.
I would walk in knowing I’m doing something wrong. As I get to the roll mill, I would notice everyone was looking at me.(I’d think “Fuck, just do it what is the worst that could happen”) As soon as I lift the wire to the Mill !!!SIRENS!!! Cops flying in from all directions tackling me to the ground, exclaiming “We’ve Got Him Red Handed.” Cut to the news, serial Roll Mill operator caught at local Harbor Freight. The street are safer now that he is behind BARS.
not sure yet,
thinking 12" by 12" or possibly 24" by 24". It all matters if I have to buy pre-flattened wire at nearly a $2.50 per foot. I would estimate the 12" by 12" at probably 20 to 30 feet of wire. No clue on the 24" by 24" I’m not sure if the usage will just double.
Your instinct is correct, it wont be as simple as doubling up. I would estimate the increase to be ~2.5 times from 12x12 to 24x24. This is taking into consideration all of the radius included in this project. Radius need to be considered the way one considers circles.
If you have the source as a cad file (or some similar vector format) it would be easy to provide you a reasonably exact length requireed for both 12x12 and 24x24.
Just found out how to do that in Illustrator, it is under Document info.
on a 12 x 12 we are looking at 28.59 feet of wire, on a 24 x 24 we are looking at 57.17 feet of wire. These numbers are pretty dead on so I would expect at least 10% loss due to my own fuck ups.
I like the idea of a 24 by 24. It feels large enough to look good on my wall without seeming small. 12 by 12 will probably be too small, but much less work.
One, I would experiment with small pieces first. My biggest concern about the 24x24 is the size of the wire needed to give the text a substantial feel. I have only seen this technique used with reasonable thin wire (say > 16-18 guage) and it gets thinned further by the flattening. The size wire I suspect you would need for 24x24 would be really hard to form into the curves your design needs.
Not tried it myself, but I strongly suggest experimenting before you commit to the final.
For your project, especially at the 24x24 size, I would suggest you look at a technique called sulpher inlay. You could create the inlay areas with the CNC router or potentially even the laser cutter.
Then you would use a molten substance, like sulfer, to ‘fill the inlays’. The same technique could be used with pewter, which would give you nice silver like lettering.
I’m thinking a .064 line weight. I don’t want to hit you over the head with the wire, instead, a subtle flash of light as you walk by is what I want to achieve. If I flatten 6 gauge wire is should work well. I would most likely need to anneal my wire to help in the shaping process.
The flattening process makes the wire hard and brittle, particularly with copper. And 6 gauge stuff is really, really hard to work with.
I really suggest for that size you consider the sulpher inlay approach, even if you want to use pewter.
I’d stay away from pure lead since it has a considerably higher melting point and will scorch wood. You may even have that problem with pewter; however, you there are a number of lower melting point metals that would work, including some that melt in boiling water.
After viewing the video, and reading this thread, I thought of using flat brazing rods instead of copper wire. It is already flat and relatively inexpensive. You could probably find different materials in the same format as well. This is what I am talking about: http://www.northerntool.com/shop/tools/product_200606860_200606860
