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Raiding
the Piggy Bank for Blade Fittings
or
How to Make Mokume from Coins.
Mokume Gane is Japanese for wood grain metal. Making mokume from coins is easy
to do. Start with about 4 bucks worth of US quarters. Which already have the
nickel fused to the copper. This means you are brazing nickel to nickel so it
makes it a bit easier to do. Neatly stack them in a pair of old tongs that you
don’t care too much about. The tongs will get beaten up. Be careful that the
coins don’t go squirting out of the tongs they will inevitably roll under all
of the things in the shop that are too difficult to move. Holding the tongs as
far back as possible put the jaws of the tongs with the coins in it in the
forge. Make sure you get an even heat if using coal or charcoal you don’t want
copper and nickel clogging up your forge. The copper will make welding a pain in
the backside. The tongs will deform some from the heat and pressure while you
are trying to keep the coins in place. When the coins start looking sweaty pull
the tongs out and clamp the jaws of the tongs in a leg vice. The coins will
braze together and will most likely not stick to the tongs. If that does happen
a good whack usually separates the coins from the tongs. At worse you’ll have
to cut the stack off and grind the remainder of the mokume off.
The
mokume
billet can then be hot
forged to the shape of the fitting as well as manipulated to produce a
variety of patterns.The billet can be worked from the top of the stack to get a
bull’s-eye pattern. This is easier to see if the billet is domed instead of
making it completely flat or it can be forged on
end to get lines and striations. Anything that can be done to manipulate the pattern
in damscus can be done to mokume like drilling small divots in it with the dime
of the drill. This will produce a stones hitting
the water rippled effect or pool and eye pattern. Grooves can be cut into the
billet to produce a ladder pattern. After cutting a pattern into the billet
forge it smooth so the patternwill be brought to the surface.
An important thing to remember is that non-ferrous
metals anneal when hot quenched in water instead of harden like carbon steel.
After annealing the mokume is very easy to cut and shape. Polish it smooth and
etch it in ferric chloride to bring out the pattern.
The ferric Chloride will eat the copper and leave the nickel virtually
untouched. It doesn’t take long to get a topography. Letting the copper
tarnish also helps to bring out the pattern.
Straightening
out the tongs and repeat as often as you like or as long as you have quarters.
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