Stenciling Steel

Hi all,

As I mentioned in my last post, I have begun working to the rim accents that will border the shield.

I am using 4130 steel for this part which has been annealed. This makes cutting and shaping easier. I am using 1/8" thick sheet stock so it will be plenty thick as to be sturdy.

First I worked out the shapes and sizes on the shield surface and then transferred those lines to a stencil:

Then, taking those stencils I transferred them to the 4130 plate stock:

Now that I have all the rough shapes transferred to the steel plate (I used black sharpie to minimize ruboff), I can begin the cutting.

Where I need precision, I used a hacksaw and/or coping saw. And where I can just zip I am using an angle grinder with a cutoff wheel:

After a couple hours of labor, I now have a first piece cut clean out. I then threw it on the arbor press and put some curve into it and you can now see it laid on the shield:

Obviously there will be more fine shaping to do and a lot of finishing work, but you can start to see how the pieces will look on the shield surface.

Five more accent pieces for the banding to go and then it will be on to the final shaping.

The mounting process will be covered as we get closer to final fabrication.

See you next time!

Moving right along

I've now finished polishing all the triangles and will begin the mounting process here soon. Here is a look of them and for perspective on the in-progress shield:

I have now started into stenciling some of the steel accents that will make up parts of the rim. For this, I am using 1/8" 4130 steel:

This will be cut into multiple pentagon like pieces that will interlock with the shield banding.

Will keep you all posted!

Putting to a polish

Hey all! So last time I showed you all the rough beveled triangles.  The basic shapes have been cut, they have been gently curved to match the curvature of the shield and the edges ground to form the bevels:

As you can see, the shape is elegant, but look at all those pesky marks, scratches and discolorations!!! 

Today's post is going to talk about remedying that. Starting with 100 grit carbide sandpaper laid on a flat surface, I went to work. I began with the front surface being careful to work in one direction. You don't want to swirl the triangle over the paper but rather smooth strokes in one direction. After working the front I then held the triangle so the edge bevel was being polish. We now have this:

See how the scratch marks are all mostly going in one direction and the discoloration is gone?

Now I turned the surface so I was working perpendicular to the scratches with 220 grit. Same process. Then turned again working perpendicular to the scratches. At 600 grit we have:

Cleaning up nicely! By 2000 grit we have pretty much a mirror:

I will do 3000 next and then buff. By then it will have a glasslike mirror surface.

I spent about 10 minutes at each grit. The important part is to make sure each grit is scratching perpendicular to the previous.

Two more triangles to go!

A Triforce Beginning to Emerge

Hey all, today is a brief update but I realized it has been much much too long since I've updated. My project went on hold for a while in order to buy a house! I had to take down the workshop for a while and begin some commissions for blades (not Zelda related).

Now that we are settled, I have gotten my workshop minimally functional again and so I thought I would update everyone. At this point I have three triangles cut for the shield, and have rough ground all the edge bevels:

This was taken in dim natural light with no flash. Here it is again with the flash (unmistakably more gold looking as it is brass):

Clearly you can see the grind and file marks. The next step will be to polish with progressively finer grits and finally buff to a mirror polish.

I have also acquired the steel plating for the accents that will be around the rim. Once the triangles are finished I will start cutting those out.

On the Princess Zelda front, I am now evaluating whether I want to change out the Swarovski crystals for the crown with genuine Swiss Blue Topaz. They are substantially more expensive but also so impressive looking. What do you all think?