A Dolphin locket coining die I made

george wilson

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My wife and I have a jewelry making business. I sometimes make master models. She makes most of them by now. She has gotten to be more independent in the 17 or so years she has been working metal,and learning from me.

I've just finished hardening and drawing this 01 steel coining die for a locket. Maybe tomorrow I'll put it into the 50 ton coining press I made,and press a piece of sterling silver into it. It will take every bit of tonnage I can bring to bear. I may have to press,anneal,and press again to get all the details. It takes 75 tons IRC,to coin a quarter(25 cents).This will be the front of the locket. I will post pictures when I coin the silver,and more when the rest of the locket is done.
So,what was machined? (This is a machining forum) Some parts. The border was machined. It is about 1" tall and about 5/8" wide. You can see from the steel rule. The face of the Sun was done with an end mill. The Art Deco Sun rays were rolled into the steel by a "knurl wheel" I made. It was mounted in the vertical mill. The die was super glued down to a round,thick steel "table" about 3" in diameter,that was chucked into a Hardinge indexer in the vertical position.I would roll out a Sun ray,roll it back,index about 10º and roll out another ray. By being careful to not disturb the position of the knurl after I rolled a ray,I got very even rays.

The Sun rays are reminiscent of
ancient Egyptian Sun Rays seen in their chiseled pictures,though I invented a variation thereof. In fact,Art Deco stems from the excitement over the major Egyptian archeological finds in the 20's. It started in France. Certain elements,the waves, incline towards the earlier Art Noveau period,however. The way the waves are terminated in small curls is reminiscent of the Japanese style.

I posted a picture of pewter practice pieces. You can see the art deco clouds,but with styilized thunder bolts I made too,for another future project. The Delphia name stamps are only 1/32" high and were hand chiseled on a GOOD day! They are intended to be
evocative of an "Ancient Greek" style. I always check out how my punches punch before finally hardening them,to make sure they read well. I coined the name Delphia for a line of ancient Greek style jewelry that we no longer make.

The Mycenaean Dolphin was hand chiseled in relief. So were the Japanese style ocean waves. The round Art Deco clouds were punched in from a punch I made. There is a school of playful little fishes coming up from the water. The Dolphin sees them. I added a raised eyebrow to the dolphin for effect. I made the little fish punch,too.

As you can see,I have combined the styles of several disparate cultures that work together in this piece.

I made the chasing hammers used to drive the engraving chisels also shown. I have a lot more of them,but this picture came out best.

Also seen,a small portion of the rifflers I made. I have made dozens more,but this is the best picture. They were used to smooth out the dolphin's body before final smoothing with polishing stones(tiny ones) I ground them out from Arkansas slip stones on my belt grinder. When I pick up chipped slip stones,I make smaller stones from them.

I posted a picture of a knurl with classical greek style waves. I made a single wave,Then I punched it around the edge of a "mother" knurl. Then,the mother knurl was used to make the final knurl.The final knurl can be seen in the group of knurls that I also made. I have many more,but my pictures of them did not focus well. This wave was not used in this locket,but will be seen in another when I get it done.

So,actually,I made all the tools used to make the locket ,except 2 end mills,from scratch!! I didn't realize that until I made this post.

dolphin .jpg IMG_0629.JPG IMG_0287.JPG IMG_0343.JPG IMG_0418.JPG IMG_0419.JPG
 
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That is simply amazing work George. I couldn't do that using a 20X Loupe.

"Billy G"
 
I hope the ladies like it. It will become part of our jewelry listing. If you type in Dawn Estrin(my wife) It will lead to our online catalog. I made some of the more complicated pieces,but not too many are sold today as they used too much silver. Silver is getting SO expensive it is hard to sell in this economy. We make a lot of lighter,small pieces. I made the Fern locket you might see in the catalog. I made any trees you see. Some are very fanciful.

I use 4X drug store glasses,Bill. Anything too powerful has too short a focal length,and I get in my own way trying to see what I'm doing. I tried the medical type telescope glasses,but I feel like my hands aren't connected to my body. They have very long focal lengths.
 
The narrow chevron knurl was made because I was making missing some brass ferrules from an antique. It had these chevron knurls on it. I wanted to make exact copies of the knurled missing parts. I took a checkering file,and hand filed with it all the way around the perimeter of the blank knurl on both sides,maintaining the same angle all the way round. I let the checkering lines just meet in the middle of the die. It happened to work perfectly. The knurl made the needed chevrons more perfectly than I thought it would.
 
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That is beautiful, so I don’t want to be newbie sounding here, but George is that die 100% hand tooled? And then hardened to make the coin die? Are you working under a microscope, or some kind of loupe? Magnavisor? Man it small, and intricate, detailed!
Bob in Oregon
 
Hi. If you read the 2nd paragraph,I described how everything was done. The Sun was cut by an end mill as was the border. The Art Deco clouds were made with a punch I made. The small fishes emerging from the water were punched with a punch I hand made.The Sun Rays were rolled from a knurl I made Everything else was hand chiseled. That means the Dolphin and the Japanese style ocean waves.

I can't find my picture of the classical Greek style fish. The Dolphin is Mycenaean ,by the way.

Here is a bad closeup of the ends of a few rifflers from my set of hand made ones. I made them in the 70's.

Here is a picture of a coined dolphin made in the highly polished die posted above. It has been blacked and the surfaces rubbed off on the high lights. The details of the coining can be seen much more easily than in the polished die. You can see the little Greek fishes coming up out of the water,and other details better now.

IMG_0299.JPG dolphin.jpg
 
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My goodness George every time I think you posted the most impressive thing ever you top it. I would like to try one of these one day. Thanks for the inspiration.

Jeff
 
raross:I use 4X drugstore glasses. Any higher magnification and the focal length is so short,I get too close to the work to use tools. I have had lenses implanted in my old eyes,and now see 20-15 at distance. I have to have glasses for closeup. My normal glasses do 2.5X,but I need the 4X for close work. I still feel as if I can't see a darn thing sometimes! I got my lenses taken out due to cataracts,though they weren't really as bad as I thought. Now a white wall looks white,and not light gold.

At least I can now read my wrist watch well enough to make it out without any glasses on. And,now I can see the gun sights without glasses. So,my vision has improved for closeup,too. I couldn't see gunsights or the watch before.
 
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