Gents, thx for the responses..Leatherbelly, one of my oldest passions and my first "new" bike, an 08 road glide...for me, summer sucked for riding this year. Given some of the back issues I had earlier this spring I didnt want to risk a fall. Speaking of summer, from the weather down here now I think its over, ah well, theres always next year.
MikeCooper, Ive tried a few different recipes, but dont have my "own". What your seeing is commercial pitch. I bought it as "chasers pitch" and bought a couple pounds at about 10$ lb. It smells like burnt pine, so I`m assuming its a pine tar base. Some use Asphaltum (roofing tar) but this is bad for you. Most are based of either and mixed with china clay (makes it harder and less tacky) or softened with linseed oil or the like to make it softer. There are those that have "winter" and "summer" mixes. Getting just the right hardness is what you want. Sometimes takes a bit of experimenting, something I`m still working at. Thinking about it, with heat, this stuff reacts very similar to "sealing wax", the stuff you melt on the back off a letter. I did a little more over the weekend, and took pics along the way.
This time I chose a shoe polish tin. The kind with the toogle on the side. After leaving the other tin( pellet tin) alone for a few days the threads corroded and gummed up enough I couldnt get the lid off. After this I dont think threaded lids are a viable idea. Anyways, Starting at pic one, the tin,pattern and tools...btw, I measure the thickness at .006
from here you melt a bit of pitch into the lid ..
then attached the pattern, I use a spray on adhesive. when the pattern has stuck, outline all around with a small liner. Use caution, watch for over/under lines..
when finished, you should now have this..
heat and remove from pitch, clean and re-mount face down onto pitch. I use a hot air paint stripper for heat. Now usin your largest ball faced tool, star to "raise" the interior of the design. Working to smaller as you get to the edges and ends of the pattern. This is a part of the process that can be difficult to get surfaces smooth. The three P`s sure apply here..
When finished it will appear similar. I`m not entirely happy with my job, a little rushed and broke thru in a couple spots,
Now heat and re-mount on pitch, this time we`ll go all around the outer edges with a "flatter" to straighten them up a bit. Ive just started doing this here
Once everything is straightened out, you "planish", this means smoothing it by going over it with a polished tool using rapid, light blows of the hammer. On this one I decide I wanted to raise the rib a little different so I remounted back on the pitch and lightly put the center vein in.
remounted it yet again and worked the topside to raise the center vein
also in this pic you can see where Ive flattened around the edges. I did a fairly rough job, but I had planned to stipple the edges to begin with. This sure hides alot of defects!!-
My stippling tool is a single point tool with about a 1/32 radius tip . It in the tool pic I posted
The last step was to add a patina, I did this with commercial cold gun blue, rubbing back with scotchbrite like the first...
heres the finished tin with the first, still a little work to do but a good way get rid of a few hours. Hope this gets the general idea across about the process.. just starting at this myself really, but I can see neat stuff in the future. Kerry
Patch tins 1+2..
