My Sculpture Weblog: Sculptural Knife Vase

The Sculptural Knife Vase

I’ve been teasing for a lot of months that I’ve been working
on a knife venture…. What sort of knife venture?… Why, a flower vase in fact! A
machined steel flower vase with fifteen razor-sharp hardened metal blades that
encircle its treasured blooming cargo.

(Truly dried flowers on this case, it’s winter in any case)

This may occasionally look like an odd mixture, perhaps even a tad tongue in cheek, nonetheless this piece
has been in improvement for a number of years and embodies most of the themes I
have been laying out over the previous few tasks. It connects quite a few
conceptual threads in my work, and does so in ways in which had been surprising even to me.

So please tuck in for an extended learn (in case you are inclined) and
I’ll do my greatest to elucidate.

Preface

I’ve spent a whole lot of time occupied with conventional craft-forms
inside numerous studio artwork actions. Practices resembling glasswork, woodturning,
and ceramics are all crafts that received their begin on a manufacturing facility flooring loads like
machine-work. Nonetheless these crafts differ from machining in a couple of essential
methods.

Not like machining, every of the above craft actions
represents a course of that has largely fallen out of business use. They’ve since
been picked up by artisans and have been turned in direction of extra inventive ends. Likewise, these
crafts have signature shapes and kinds which can be frequent inside their commerce
(Vases, bowls, urns and so forth). They’re shapes that inform that crafts specific historical past.
Most of those kinds are used to be taught their respective practices and have
grow to be inseparable from that crafts visible language.

These craft-forms are of curiosity to me as a result of whereas
machining is a craft that shares an analogous industrial previous, there are few signature kinds one can level to that uniquely consultant it as a medium. The machinist panorama appears to lack ubiquitous kinds that fall
neatly into the identical paradigm of craft and craft-form. One probably purpose is that machine-work is a sprawling self-discipline full of specialised expertise. The vary of instruments
and processes at play are so diverse it’s almost not possible to seek out tasks
which can be analogous to what one finds in a woodturning class or glass blowing
studio.

Due to this absence of distinctive craft-forms inside the world
of machined steel, I’ve spent appreciable time exploring what a “machined craft-form” is perhaps. Ought to machining finally
discover higher standing as a sculptural medium, what kinds would possibly come to outline it?

I undertook all kinds of tasks to discover this, together with
hand-held kinetic artwork tasks, a machined vessel collection, and even a couple of collaborations
with different makers and machinists. These tasks drew inspiration from lots of
the economic crafts listed above, in addition to traits inside the modern
machinist group, and even historic craft-forms resembling Japanese Netsuke and
Chinese language snuff bottles.

The Sharp Arts

The historical past of the knife is the historical past of mans materials
progress. Like machine-work, it embodies a large spectrum of metalworking
processes. One can discover numerous practitioners nonetheless placing hammer to anvil
in a manner that’s hundreds of years outdated. And whereas its historic traditions
are alive and effectively, the world of knife making has additionally been fully
reworked by the adoption of contemporary machine instruments and new know-how.

The Sculpture Connection

Whereas numerous knife makers have impressed my work, I discovered it
troublesome to method the craft straight by my work. My course of sometimes
entails stripping away the utility from numerous design or craft ideas to higher reveal what’s aesthetically attention-grabbing about them. I felt that it
is perhaps not possible to strip the utility from a knife and nonetheless have an
object that’s each attention-grabbing and spoke meaningfully to the craft.


It lastly occurred to me that it isn’t needed to totally strip
the utility from a knife to understand its inherent aesthetic qualities; one
can merely put these qualities into a singular context. My earlier tasks
involving historic craft-forms have (oddly sufficient) offered me a conceptual
bridge of kinds. They’ve equipped me with the required framework inform a narrative about
materials progress and blade making on the identical time.

The venture

Now there could also be a few of you on the market who’re delay by the
concept of exploring weapons of any type as artwork, however I believe this piece simply
demonstrates that knives could be many issues moreover that. I actually am not
fully certain what all of the implications of utilizing blades as sculptural parts
is perhaps. However to those that can be essential, I ask that you simply keep an open thoughts, and acknowledge that as a rule, knives are instruments like another.

There’s magnificence (and humor) to be present in even essentially the most tactical aesthetics inside
the inventive industrial arts, so whereas it’s straightforward to evaluate, it’s much more
attention-grabbing to discover, and it’s my intention to do the latter.

Technical Notes:

Since I used to be protecting this work sort of a secret, I used to be not
in a position to share course of images in actual time like I’ve grow to be accustom, so beneath
is breakdown of a number of the challenges I confronted in addition to a number of the
documentation I made alongside the way in which. 
Once more, a little bit of a learn, however for these within the nuts and bolts
of the venture, it needs to be attention-grabbing.

Whereas my choice is to introduce new strategies one at a
time, tackling knife making made that method fairly not possible. I used to be in over
my head in too some ways to depend, which was refreshing and disorienting on the identical time. I had
by no means made a knife blade earlier than (not on goal anyway), so there may be somewhat a
lot to the touch on right here.

Machining the blades:

There are a number of frequent methods to make knife blades, some are
cast (assume hammer and anvil), some begin with pre-made bar inventory and go straight
to the grinder to create the form, and nonetheless others machine the vast majority of
the geometry after which go to ending operations. In my case, I clearly needed
to machine the blades, however this isn’t as easy because it first appears.

For starters, I had by no means machined excessive efficiency knife
steels earlier than. Knife steels are a lot more durable than the alloys I sometimes choose.
They’re unforgiving to machine, so set-ups and machining parameters should be
far more fastidiously utilized. Selecting an applicable alloy was daunting, however after
a whole lot of analysis, I settled on a metal referred to as AEBL. Like all knife steels, it
has execs and cons to be used as knife metal.

The professional: AEBL is utilized in a whole lot of kitchen cutlery, so it’s
fairly frequent and simple to supply. It has nice corrosion resistance and is understood
to be comparatively straightforward to harden and sharpen. Additionally it is fairly cheap,
which is essential for an experiment with so many blades in it. Unique knife
steels can get extraordinarily pricy, and there was no should be unnecessarily spendy
when good choices abound.

The con: Surprisingly, there was not a whole lot of data on
machining AEBL. I had a tough time getting suggestions on slicing parameters.
I got here to be taught it is because AEBL is primarily utilized in making massive amount
industrial blades. It’s extra generally minimize with abrasives processes like water
jet cutters or lasers, after which floor to closing form. That didn’t imply it was
un-machine-able, it simply meant that that it wasn’t frequent, so data was
scarce. I did finally get some helpful steerage from a fellow knife maker to
use as a place to begin.

Total: As soon as work received underway, I discovered that AEBL wasn’t
horrible to machine, even on the modest instruments that I’ve, the end was
truly fairly good. However, whereas the machines dealt with it effectively sufficient, I needed to
take my time and never push issues. I discovered that AEBL has some abrasive
properties to it that wore the tip mills sooner than anticipated.

Since I needed to make 15 blades (plus some spares) for the
venture, I burned by extra $25 cutters than I care to confess. A few of this
untimely put on might have been mitigated with a extra inflexible and balanced tooling
arrange, however I soldiered by, took my time, and ended up with fairly nice
outcomes.

Beneath can also be a video displaying a number of the fixture-ing and the
warping points I additionally encountered.

Warmth-treating and Hardening metal:

One other course of I had little expertise with was
heat-treating and hardening metal. Whereas that is one thing that toolmakers and
machine designers are fairly acquainted, as a sculptor, it simply isn’t one thing I had
a lot of a necessity for, till now.

Warmth-treating is fascinating for a lot of causes; chief amongst
them is that it makes a lot of the steel work I do potential. At its easiest,
machining is solely utilizing a more durable materials, to chop a barely softer one. When
milling brass with metal, this could appear a easy mater of fabric choice.
However when slicing one sort of metal, with an analogous sort of metal, issues begin
to get technically attention-grabbing and down proper philosophical.

That is grossly oversimplified, however consider it this manner,
the principle think about figuring out metal’s hardness is its carbon content material, and the way
these carbon atoms are organized inside the steel. Warmth-treating is how one
arranges the atoms to create the hardness one needs. Cutters and blades solely
should be barely more durable than the fabric they intend to chop. So it’s
fully potential to take two items of the identical alloy, heat-treat one to make
it onerous, after which deal with the opposite in order that it’s comfortable. From there you possibly can simply
form and minimize one with the opposite, type of like slicing heat softened butter
with a more durable piece of frozen butter. That’s fascinating stuff.

Sharpening metal:

Whereas I’ve been shaping steel for many years, I had by no means
deliberately drawn a razor sharp edge onto a chunk of steel for the needs
of constructing artwork. I’ve sharpened cutlery in a utilitarian context, however by no means in
a manner that was cautious of the geometry and polish of the metal. Sharpening
blades with precision was one other talent I must hone (get it).

There are seasoned knife makers who’ve perfected their sharpening approach
over a few years, and over hundreds of knives. Some can draw an edge onto a
blade standing at a handbook grinder in only a few minutes utilizing some hard-earned
muscle reminiscence. I nonetheless, should not have this talent (but!) so regardless of my lengthy
profession in metalworking; I needed to compensate for inexperience with using a
sharpening fixture.

All of my sculptures are constructed round some novel meeting methodology or engineering idea that I can categorical in a visually attention-grabbing manner, and this work is not any exception.

Every blade has a T formed backbone that engages with a comparable slot alongside the size of the vessel physique. The blades are secured by a few tiny setscrews that interact the backbone and supply a clamping power for the blades in every slot.

The screws are accessed from the alternative aspect of the
vessel, by reaching by the work from the ornamental pin holes precisely
reverse the lock screw. From there, the remainder of the meeting was fairly straight ahead, I used the ornamental pin holes as further locking set screws for the stainless-steel liner of the vase.

I made a brief video to reveal the idea.  (beneath)

As you possibly can see within the video, I additionally made some enjoyable
gadgets for transferring the work with out having to the touch the blades, one thing that
wanted fairly a bit of additional consideration. Getting this factor into place with out hurting your self or others is definitely fairly tough. 

Anyhow, thanks for studying. 

As at all times, questions and feedback are fairly welcome.