The cutting of the plates for the copes and other stones was done on the hydraulic shear. The material is roughly In order to layout the marks correctly the first one had to be marked an extra 95mm back. This is so that it can be referenced to the outside of the shear assembly and is thus much easier to see. 

The tooling used for this process was the dies for bending the copes and the tool for texturing the plates. For the bending dies they were made in two parts. First the male end of the press was laid out on a 1" thick plate with marks for the three holes. The five semi-circular shapes were cut out of the plates and the three holes were drilled out. Next the plates were lined up using the holes and tacked together, this was so that I could grind them all to be exactly the same, to make sure the top was perfectly square I checked it with a square by referencing the sides. After I had cleaned them up one of the guys welded them together while I worked on the female ends. For the female ends it was much the same, I started by roughly smoothing them out one at a time, while I was doing this I cut off the corners and ground them into a soft radius. The soft corners are to help the plates slide in smoother as they get pressed into the cope shape. Next the female ends were tacked together and ground to be perfectly the same, then the four corners were marked out and also drilled out to 1". Each end of the die was welded to a plate so that they could be fixed to the hydraulic press. After a first test of the the dies we saw that the bottom plate of the press bed was being picked up by the tool, to fix this we cut out some robust "c" shaped plates which were welded to the bottom of the press bed and the top of the attached die. This solved out problem. The bottom die also recieved a sleeve that prevents any texture from transfering to the copes during pressing. The last edit we had to make to the tools was to make the throat of the top die deeper because the plates were longer than the die was tall. I didnt participate in this fix hands on since I was working on the texturing but it was good to see how tooling can be changed from the plan.

The plate texturing tool was simple to make and just involved taking some truck leaf spring and forging it roughly to a wedge shape and grinding it smooth with rounded corners. The tool handle is put on at an angle so that it is both comfortable to hold as well as being out of the way of the work. The tool is quenched at a cherry red heat and tempered to a golden color. It is ground one more time with a fine belt to get the quench scale off and to make a smooth finished surface

The texturing of the plates was done under the 500 weight Massey power hammer named "Mr. Crunchy". The texturing was straightfoward, overlap the blows to make an irregular texture as well as varying the force of the blows to make different depth grooves. The biggest risk was accidently texturing when it was too cold which would obviously break the texturing tool. After each texturing heat the plates were straightened in both planes under the 15 ton hydraulic press. this also helped to press the sides that were bulging from the texture back in. After the plates were completly textured they were either set outside to cool down or bent in under the press.

The bending of the copes was very straightfoward work, the textured plates were either reheated or taken straight from the furnace and set into the press and sent on down. After each couple copes were bent the tool was hosed down with water to cool it off, at max production it was cooled off in between every cope. There is a video of this process linked in the "Scotland Photos" album

I did not participate much in setting the copes on to the main structure but I did help with making of some smaller curved plates that served to look like the mortar beetween the copes, though I did not take any photos of these. I also assisisted with putting copes on the end posts and adding length to the cope so that it appeared as a larger stone. To do this the cope was welded on first. We prepared the tops of the posts by cutting them down to fit the curve of the copes. Then spacers were cut out of scrap material and welded in, this was done to prevent the walls of the post from warping in during the welding. After the cope was fitted to the post it was taken off and another textured plate was welded to it and carefully ground with the die grinder to match the surrounding texture. Then the elongated cope was welded to the post. 

I knew the design would pay homage to both of the countries I had spent time working in this summer: Scotland, and Germany. I chose to draw inspiration from the flags, specifiaclly the bavarian flag for germany, and of course the regular scottish flag. Since they are both blue and white diamond patterns I chose the diamond as the principle design element. I also wanted to incorporate some sort of technique that I had learned or that was only possible with tooling that I didnt have access to at college. For Germany I chose to make some exaggerated drifted holes on the ribs of the bowl to get a swell out akin to the base for the Indian racer table. For Scotland I chose to make use of the hydraulic press, this gave the tiles a cool pillowed out shape. Lastly the arrangement of the ribs and tiles was such that the Bavarian and Scottish flags could be seen.

The experimenting phase involved figuring out the tools necessary to achieve both the pillowed out tiles as well as the exaggerated drifting of the holes in a consistent manner. Initially for the tiles I was going to forge out a large bar under the power hammer and hope the end pillowed out like I was hoping, this proved very inconsistent. It did however help confirm it was something I wanted as part of the bowl. Pete suggested I use a swage under the hydraulic press, this worked splendidly. 

For the holes I attempted to just blast a drift through a bar, this was very inconsistent. Pete and I concluded a bolster would serve the job well. I fabricated one up and it worked a treat. 

The tooling involved in the bowl project included: the punch, drift, and bolster for the holes and the swage for the tiles. The punch was a long slot punch and who's dimensions I have forgotten. the drift was roughly 20mm square. The bolster was constructed out of 30mm square bar with one corner being ground into a radius, then they were cut and mitred to make a square with a roughly 45mm central square hole. The size of the hole allows for the thickness of the drift and the thickness of the bar being drifted. This bolster was then welded to a square tube for the hardy hole and big enough for the drift to pass through. 

The swage was made with mild steel. The features of the swage were done by cutting two half diamond shapes into each of the blocks one diamond shape was horizontal and the other was vertical. The blocks were then welded to a standard swage handle and then case hardened. 

The production was broken into two categories: tiles and ribs.

The tiles were made from 30mm square bar. First the square bar was roughly shaped into a rhombus under the power hammer by knocking down one corner and then working the rhombus shape into the bar by forging the displaced surfaces. after the bars had been made into rhombuses they were forged in the swage underneath the hydraulic press. Since the starting rhombus material was oversize from the finished tile size it was able to be pressed down smaller. The hydraulic press' ability to apply a consistent pressure allowed the material to pillow out the way it does. After a batch had been worked down on the ends of the rhombus bars the tiles were cut off. This was done by setting an adjusable square to 20mm and carefully marking two sides of the tile. The tile was then cut off the end of the bar using an angle grinder. The remainder of the pressed down rhombus stock was also cut off to the base of the parent bar. The tiles were lightly cleaned up on the edges with the grinder. This process was then repeated until I had made 130+ tiles. 

For the ribs it was a more simple matter of making four bars with holes punched and drifted. It starts by making a long slot punched hole that is upset to roughly square. Then the drift is sent through the hole on the bolster, the upsetting helped to bring that mass closer to the hole, which means that the walls were able to be taller. after the initial drifing was done the hole was lightly hammered to even out the edges that were pushed out. Then the drift is driven through again and the hole is done. 

The central tile was easy, it was forged out underneath the press out of a much larger bar, since I only needed one it was a one off piece.

The feet were forged last, the design was something I had figured out in an earlier project at school so it was easy for me to make them. it involved taking stock with a 1:2 ratio and forging a "tenon" on the end. the other end is then forged over the post vise into a triangle shape. 

The bowl was welded together using the tig welder on top of a metal dish which served as the jig. The ribs and central tile were centered, clamped and welded together first.

The welding of the tiles took the longest since each tile needed to be held in place to be tacked and then subsequently welded to the surrounding tiles. The solution I found for this was to use hot glue to stick the tiles to the dish I was using as the reference and then tack them together. This made the process much quicker and more consistent. After all of the tiles were tacked I ran full beads on all the joints. The joints were ground smooth and ready for finishing work. 

The feet were welded in by propping the center up and hot gluing the feet in from the inside, and then sneakily welding them on the outside. 

The bowl was given a careful scaling in the coke forge and then thouroghly wire brushed. It was then blown off with compressed air and wiped down with acetone. Lastly it was given a coat of renaissance wax after being lightly warmed with the oxy-acetylene torch, the wax was buffed to a nice polish.