What can be made from metal
The most popular products that are created using welding are practical household structures, furniture and decorative elements.
Household products include elements of fences, gates, as well as small products such as boxes, containers for food and other things. The artistic welding method allows not only to give the desired shape to the product, but also to create an original pattern or texture on the surface.
Metal specialists can make decorative tables, coffee tables, chairs, hangers, shoe racks and other items that serve a practical function and are used indoors or outdoors.
Such artistic furniture has an original appearance, is not afraid of moisture when properly processed, can withstand heavy mechanical loads, and has a long service life.
The cost of artistic welding cannot be called low due to the material used in the work. These are mainly titanium and stainless steel. Zirconium is used to obtain color shades.
Artistic welding allows you to create a variety of objects used for decoration. These can be animal figures, ornamental details for decorating walls, ceilings, columns or arches, details in the shape of flowers and plants.
The number of options to choose from depends solely on the wishes of the client and his budget, as well as the style features of the interior. Most often, decorative items created by welding are ordered by people living in luxury cottages and who want to demonstrate a sense of taste and originality of design. But everyone can afford a small stainless steel craft.
Tools for cold decorative forging
Anvil: a – horn;
b – shank; in face; d – recess for punching holes; d – hole for installing a backing tool; e – platform for cutting metal; g – shoe. Materials and tools:
- metal rods;
- welding machine;
- special stencils;
- dye.
Using such equipment, it is possible to produce about 10 square meters of products per day. Hand tools for cold forging are quite durable. With their help, you can make various forged patterns.
You can make forging devices yourself. They have different capabilities.
The first device is a bender. With its help, the master bends a metal rod at a certain angle and makes a semicircle of a given diameter.
Lantern creates forged items in the shape of a lantern.
The snail creates various curls, bends, spirals and other patterns.
A volumetric blank is necessary to create three-dimensional parts.
The wave gives the products a wave-like shape.
A twister is designed to twist a rod relative to a parallel straight line.
The main processes of cold forging are pressing and bending. This work is performed without heating the metal. The material is cold bent.
Ways to eliminate sink marks.
The strength of finished products increases, and their flexibility decreases.
To increase the strength of the structure, heat treatment of the material is performed between each forging stage.
Forged products can be produced automatically on machines. Handmade work is not inferior to mechanized work in terms of durability and beauty of the finished products.
When performing cold forging, many products can be made using one stencil. When hot forging, stencils are not used.
Cold forging can be carried out with metal of small thickness, because it is impossible to bend thick material without heating.
The following products can be produced using the decorative forging method:
- figured lattices;
- patterns for fences and gates;
- pieces of furniture;
- furniture finishing;
- souvenirs;
- mirror frames;
- stands for flowers, candles, dishes;
- building decorations;
- railings, canopies.
Advantages of welded products
One of the main advantages of things created using artistic welding is their beautiful and original appearance.
This method makes it possible to produce hundreds and thousands of options for finished products and parts that can perform a practical function or serve solely as decoration. Welding allows you to create elegant and attractive objects that cannot be replicated exactly.
Although it is a relatively new art form, unlike forging, it is gaining more and more attention. One of the centers of artistic welding is the Paton Institute.
Another advantage of iron products made using artistic welding is their high strength and reliability. Such items, be it ornaments for decorating a fence or furniture for the street, are not afraid of increased mechanical loads, have a long service life, do not require specific or complex care, maintaining not only their physical qualities, but also their appearance. For additional protection of artistic products, you can use special compounds to repel dust, dirt and moisture.
Metal crafts combine well with other objects and various materials, including brick, block, stone and wood.
If, for example, welded decorative elements are intended to decorate a fence or gate, they look great in combination with corrugated sheets, red and facing bricks, concrete and other materials.
Furniture created by artistic welding looks beautiful in a classic, Baroque, Romanesque, Greek style interior, and small items can decorate a room decorated in the High-Tech direction.
What is cold forging of metal?
Tools for cold forging: hammer, bent, snail, twister, wave, volumetric and others.
To perform decorative cold forging, it is necessary to allocate a special workshop. To carry out the work you will need tools for bending metal. The workshop should have good lighting.
Cold artistic metal forging is the bending of small diameter metal rods using simple equipment.
This method of creating forged products is simpler than hot forging, which requires sophisticated equipment and knowledge of blacksmithing. Many forged products made by hot forging can also be created using cold artistic forging.
The most difficult stage of cold forging is welding of finished parts. It is performed after products from bent metal rods are made. After welding, the weld seam is cleaned and the finished structure is painted. Therefore, to master the art of cold forging, you must have welding skills.
First, the master creates a sketch of the finished product on paper, and then, according to the intended drawing, makes all the details and patterns by bending metal rods.
Tools and drawings
To practice artistic welding using rolled metal, you need the following devices and equipment:
- a machine for manual argon arc welding (they use it to weld non-ferrous metals and stainless steel), a torch for it, filler wire and an argon cylinder;
- paper. Without it, it is impossible to draw drawings with determination of dimensions and small nuances that are difficult to take into account when visualizing without a plan. However, in the modern world you can also use computer programs;
- stationery for marking (pencil, ruler, protractor);
- working surface, which must be made of materials resistant to high temperatures and flames.
Before starting work on artistic welding, it is necessary to make a drawing and think about what size the product will be, what it is intended for, and what style it should be combined with.
The finished image is only part of such a drawing. In addition to the sketch, it is necessary to draw individual details, indicate connection points and their number, and examine the object in several planes.
Correct deposition
The proper approach to work will make the task easier. Draw up a plan in which diagrams, sketches and quantities of material are indicated. Step by step deposition:
- Come up with an image or find it on the Internet or in a book. It all depends on the preferences of the master.
- The original photo of artistic welding is transferred to a cardboard sheet. In order not to draw by hand, there is a way to help you cope with the matter. A thin landscape sheet of paper is applied to the monitor with a picture and the lines are traced with a pencil using light touches.
- The blank is placed on cardboard and fixed with glue. Use scissors or a utility knife to cut out unnecessary parts to make a stencil.
- The canvas is attached with tape to the door in the center. In the installed stencil, the internal spaces are outlined with chalk. The thicker the line, the better, since you will have to view the outline through darkened glasses.
- The steel is wiped free of dust. Filler wire is fused along the boundaries and throughout the entire area of the print. They make a three-dimensional sculpture. Metal is deposited on top of the primary layers where needed. If it is a dragon, then the head, body, and tail are thickened.
- The work is brought to a finished state. The rough surface of the product is cleaned to a smooth state with a grinder and files. The last tool is suitable for hard-to-reach areas.
Additional detailing will enhance the aesthetics of the iron sculpture. At the end they are painted in various colors - black, brown, and treated with silver.
Main job
At this stage, the master selects the material. Thus, for small and elegant figures or sculptures, titanium can be used in its pure form or with small additions of zirconium, which gives the products a special shine.
When artistic welding is used to create a fence, gate, furniture or other large objects, steel is usually used as the base material. The stainless steel construction is not susceptible to the negative influence of moisture and is resistant to accidental and targeted impacts.
After determining the materials, shape and dimensions, the master, using a welding machine, produces the desired item.
Depending on the complexity and size, artistic welding can take from 1 day to several weeks.
The surface can be polished or engraved; in some cases, individual fragments are decorated with tarnish colors. This is an effect in which the steel surface becomes iridescent and iridescent, and is achieved through exposure to high temperatures. After the product is ready, it must cool.
Products: gates, benches and others
Cold forging technology is ideally suited for the production of large-scale products , i.e. differing in medium and large sizes. This is due to the fact that it takes a blacksmith a lot of time , which ultimately negatively affects the final cost of the item .
To work with metal using cold technology, equipment is used that reduces labor costs and saves time , which guarantees affordable solutions. Thus, the cold forging method most often produces:
- gates, fences and gates;
Transparent fence, cold forging. Photo Integral
- fencing;
Wrought iron lawn fencing. Company Favorit
- awnings and canopies;
- porch;
- benches and benches;
- stairs and other products.
Safety precautions and processing nuances
Like any other welding work, artistic welding requires strict adherence to safety rules.
If you use the equipment incorrectly, you can get an electric shock, become partially or completely blind when exposed to ultraviolet radiation or scale, get poisoned by fumes arising from metal processing, get burned as a result of the melting of the material or an accidental explosion of the cylinder.
Such consequences are dangerous to health and life, so you need to use a mask and protective clothing . It is best to choose a product with chameleon glass, which changes the degree of darkness depending on the amount of ultraviolet light hitting the surface
Before you start welding steel, you need to clear the work area of foreign objects. It is better to start experiments in artistic welding with products of simple shape.
It is also necessary to study welding techniques well in order to firmly connect structural parts and spend a minimum of time on this.
