Request for product

 

As the title of the blog post says I had a request for a range of my leaf related items including Leaf-spoons, Leaf Tea Caddy Spoons, Leaf Knives-spreaders and small patinated copper leaves. Leaf-spoons and Leaf Tea Caddy Spoons above.

I managed to get them done during the week and delivered them this morning. So I will see where this goes in the next little while. Some photos of each of the items follow.

A few process photos are included below.

It has been a while since I have made pieces for a local outlet.

Functional creations

©2019 Barry Smith - Eleven Tea Caddy Leafspoons with tags ready for delivery to Maleny Additions

I had a request from Maleny Additions for another batch of Tea Caddy Leafspoons. By grabbing bits and pieces of time I managed to finish 11 leafspoons as you can see from the photo above.

I know I have done this before but I still felt I might share some aspects of the process.

©2019 Barry Smith - Marking the blanks of the Tea Caddy Leafspoons onto the sections of silver-plate cut from a old silver-plated tray - using a template.

©2019 Barry Smith - Blanks cut and ready for forming into spoon shapes - the metal looks pretty rough and dirty

©2019 Barry Smith - Gorgeous curly offcuts

©2019 Barry Smith - Bowls of the spoons formed

©2019 Barry Smith - Marked up ready for folding and hammering

©2019 Barry Smith - Grinding completed as the sun went down

©2019 Barry Smith - Polishing finished in the morning light.

The Tea Caddy Leafspoons appear to be very popular as functional art pieces - quite a number make their way overseas - they are light and strong.

A whole lot of grinding

©2018 Barry Smith - Bunch of leaf-spoons on worn timber in late afternoon light

I didn't get a lot of time in the garage-studio today because of community commitments.

I did get to finish the stash of Leaf-spoons. When I was over at the grinding-polishing bench I realised that there was quite a bit of work and maybe skill in taking the rough fold-formed leaf-spoons and turning them into beautiful smooth objects.

I asked Fiona to take a 10 second video of the grinding wheel and a little bit of the process. But of course I could not load it in its uncompressed format; and life is too short to spend too much time on such matters. See my Facebook page for the video.

Anyway after a couple of hours of grinding and polishing the stash of Leaf-spoons emerge.

©2018 Barry Smith - Bunch of leaf-spoons on work bench in late afternoon light

©2018 Barry Smith - Bunch of leaf-spoons on worn timber in late afternoon light

A good outcome for the day. Now I seriously think it is time to get some pizza and red wine happening.

Hard metal or weak hands?

©2018 Barry Smith - Offcuts of hard brass

It is the first Friday back on the mountain after our 6 weeks in the cottage in Scotland. Whilst we did quite a bit of manual work around the cottage whilst there it was always with heavy padded gloves and large tools.

Today I started to make 'product' - probably about 15 Leaf Tea Caddy Spoons and 15 Leaf-spoons. Of course it involved cutting up a number of silver plated drink and serving trays which is quite easy with my large bench top guillotine.

©2018 Barry Smith

But after marking the metal up the curved blanks needed to be cut by hand with small jeweller's metal shears.

©2018 Barry Smith

©2018 Barry Smith

©2018 Barry Smith

After a while I found I needed to add on a couple of band-aids to keep the blisters at bay.

The metal certainly was hard - I suspected there was nickel in the brass.

It did get the stashes cut but I wanted to test doing leaf forming before committing myself to the 30 pieces of cut metal. I annealed a couple and didn't anneal a comparison piece. If you look closely you can see the leaf on the right has a stretch tension lines - this us the un-annealed piece. the other two worked better and unfolded without the tension line.

©2018 Barry Smith

At least there were no fractures. So all the pieces are ready for forming etc over the weekend if time permits.

©2018 Barry Smith - Ready for annealing and fold forming

©2018 Barry Smith - Annealed and ready for fold forming

Christmas stock

©2017 Barry Smith - Six Leaf Tea Caddy Spoons - these spoons have a round front section for scooping out a single serve of tea leaves

Over the weekend I planned to repurpose some silver-plated tray stands and other interesting objects by giving them a good planned and sequenced hammering. That was put on hold as Maleny Additions asked if I could replenish their stock of Tea Caddy Spoons, Leaf-spoons and Leaf Pate Knives.

In the end I cut enough metal to make 17 objects: 6 Tea Caddy Spoons, 7 Leaf-spoons and 4 Leaf Pate Knives.

©2017 Barry Smith - Marking up the rectangles of silver-plate cut from recycled trays

A few more process photos follow.

©2017 Barry Smith - Marking the fold lines on the three different objects

©2017 Barry Smith - All the pieces were given an initial grind to improve shaper and get rid if rough metal

©2017 Barry Smith - All pieces nice and shiny and reflecting the surrounding colours

And then a couple more photos of the finished and tagged objects.

©2017 Barry Smith - Four Leaf Pate Knives - red/orange of my shirt reflected on the pate knives

©2017 Barry Smith - Seven Leaf-Spoons

Because I was doing three similar but different leaf form objects concurrently I took a little more notice of the folding and hammering sequences for the different objects. These three objects are my own designs using fold-forming techniques. The folding and hammering of the leaf forms occurs at a different point in the making process for each object. Maybe one day I will document the different processes.

Off to market

Over the weekend I had to get the the Tea Caddy Leafspoons and the Coffee Measuring spoons completed so they could be sent to Myrtleford Victoria and be there before Easter.

©2017 Barry Smith - A couple of rusty piano wheels and polished silver-plated hammered bowls on the polishing workbench wheels were holding plastic sheeting down

Well after a big effort, and help from Fiona in the riveting process, I managed to get 12 Tea Caddy Leafspoons and 10 Coffee Measuring Spoons completed (plus a couple of casualties that can't go to market).

©2017 Barry Smith - A whole lot of polishing there - including some strays I included along the way

©2017 Barry Smith - A couple of polished hammered bowls plus a couple of resin pieces destined to become a pendant

©2017 Barry Smith

Fiona also assisted in choosing the 6 Tea Caddy Spoons and 6 Coffee Measuring Spoons below that will be express posted to Myrtleford tomorrow. The coffee measuring spoons deliver about 7gms of ground coffee as a rounded heaped spoon.

©2017 Barry Smith

©2017 Barry Smith

Riveting the small twisted brass handles to the small bowls of the Coffee Measuring Spoons was a real challenge. Metal on metal on metal resulted in the bits slipping at different stages of the drilling and riveting process. I could not have done it without Fiona's extra set of hands; and even then it was a challenge. There are some commissions one is happy to have completed.

It must be the gift buying season

©2016 Barry Smith - Lint and grindings from the grinding and polishing bench

This blog post is a refection of the fact that some folk are into gift buying at the moment. Only a few weeks ago I delivered some leafspoons, leaf pate knives, leaf letter openers and ladles to Maleny Additions. However I was asked could I bring in more stock as they had all but sold out. So it was a matter of getting down into the garage-studio and getting into production.

©2016 Barry Smith - Cut out and ready for folding, hammering etc

©2016 Barry Smith  - Graond and machine polished - ready for final polish

And as you can see from the photos below a stash of stuff was produced, tagged (courtesy of Fiona) and delivered to the shop.

©2016 Barry Smith - Leafspoons

©2016 Barry Smith - Pairs of cake fork and spoon - bit of a new work - will see how they go

©2016 Barry Smith - Leaf Letteropeners

©2016 Barry Smith - Leaf Pate Knives

©2016 Barry Smith - Ladles

Whilst the leaf spoons, leaf pate knives and leaf letter openers are not the greatest pieces of hammered metal art folk seem to like them because they are different and hand made.