I'm all for by-hand but...

Hey everyone, so I made some recent progress (and had a bit of a setback, too) on the shield.  We'll start with the bad news.

First, repousse on steel is HARD!!! I've now done some on non-ferrous metals (copper, brass, etc.) and, while it work hardens, it is relatively malleable to emboss.  Steel work hardens much less than those metals and even can sometimes be cold-hammered.  So, out come the three-pound sledge and the repousse tools and I am thinking I can make some progress on the loftwing pattern.  NOPE!!! Won't budge.  So then I think: let's add some heat! NOPE! All I managed to do was scorch it.  So clearly I need a hotter flame and I am probably gonna have to get it to almost forging temperature, but we'll come back to that...

Bad news (but some good news, too): I got started on my triangle edge-beveling!  Here we have something to show for it:

Nice and clean, huh? Well. That one edge took FOUR AND A HALF HOURS!!! I'm all for by-hand, but at 4.5hrs per edge... That means we're looking at 40.5 hours just to rough-bevel the triangles! That doesn't even include the polishing! Yikes! So... I need something to speed things along at least for the majority of the stock removal.  So this morning I ordered a belt grinder.  Hehe. C'mon, I know, I know. I can hear you saying it.  "Smiths of old never had belt grinders!" Well...  If they did they'd have used them, People.  Cut me some slack.  I want to work smart. I will still be doing the finishing work (final filing and polishing) by hand.  I just want help with the general shaping! 

In other news, and something that went exactly as planned, was the bending of the triangles to match the curvature of the shield.  I just threw each triangle on my Arbor press and gave the handle a good pull (not TOO much) and voila!

You can see they now have a gentle curve that matches the curve of the shield.  I love my Arbor press!

So, now having ordered the belt grinder, I also decided I needed a hotter torch, so I also ordered: a MAPP gas torch and threw in some more of the raw materials I will need to finish up the fabrication of the shield: 1/8" diameter steel rod (to frame the triforce), and 1/8" thickness steel plate (to make the thorns, and the accents pieces of the edging/rim).

I just need to get the actual sheet for the basic rim and I will have procured all the metals necessary for the shield.  Once fabrication is done I can then worry about finishing (acid etching, enameling and mounting).

Coming along!