Description
48″ diameter engraved steel saw blade. The colors are heat colors. It depicts a farmer plowing with his horse and dog in the early morning moonlight.
When I first came up with this metalworking technique, my neighbor had given me an old sawmill blade. I have always loved doing designs on a circle, probably from my pottery background.
My first attempt was to grind the design in very low relief. This ended quickly as the tool steel was so hard. I next tried brazing brass onto areas to color them. Also not an easy thing to do. I was familiar with heat colors or temper colors from making carving tools. When I saw the colors run on the bare steel as I tried the brazing process, it all came together. With a little experimenting, a new technique for “painting” on steel was developed.
This 48″ dia. sawmill sawblade was engraved with grinding tools and colored with oxidation colors or heat colors, using a large torch. The work proceeds from hot to cold so as not to change areas that have already been colored.
The bracket on the back allows the viewer to rotate the picture to view at different angles.
Limited edition of 6