Dar Shelton
sheltech@webtv.net

The condensed version of what followed is as follows:
Pretty straightforward cleanup and patchup of the bronze piece;
a bit tricky getting it flat , and hopefully aligned right. Remember,
the epoxy mold is already made, so the casting has to fit back into it's own impression in the epoxy for it to work right.
Not so routine was flattening out the wings and body of the Dfly in the 3/32" steel the cutting  die is made of. I had to heat them up
red hot and bend them with pliers.

This large scale warping of large dies is the main reason that soldering forms to them is not a good idea. Much better to drill and tap the die and form and screw them together , like I did on the giant leaf. For a large die with wire designs, it's best to use a low melt solder instead of brazing type solder because the heat that low melt solders use won't warp the die.

So anyway, I did manage to get the bronze casting silver brazed to the cutting die (do what I say, not what I do (^:#) . The only problem,and it was no minor inconvenience, was that as the thing cooled , it warped all over again.  Not acceptable , because the degree of warpage would have meant that the die would have had to flex
significantly each pressing, and as we all know (if we've been reading), that would eventually cause the die to break.

(dramatic photo taken before pickling to convey more of the feeling of the struggle it took to do this. You've seen the thing all clean and pretty already, and will again)
Dar
www.sheltech.net

This message contains the 77 kb attachment [ Fixed_Dfly_Die.jpg ] Successful Docking of Die and Form

[ This message was edited on Tue Apr 30 by the author ]