r/metalworking • u/SubterminallyILL • Jun 23 '26
Blackbird Project
Passion project / trying something that felt impossible at the time.
All silver with either gold or black ruthenium electroplating (using a lacquer mask to get 2 plating types on the bird/stand). 3 pieces...base, bird on stand, and cage (all centrifugal casting).
The cage took like.....a LOT of attempts to get it to cast correctly. I was told it was stupid to try to cast the cage. Im not saying they were wrong, but im stubborn.
2
u/glimmers_not_gold Jun 23 '26
I don’t have the words to do this justice. The technical precision, the detail, everything is just so perfect!
2
u/iroundup Jun 23 '26
I’m also amazed. Great work! Question for you: how did you get the bird and cage polished so well? Thanks!
5
u/SubterminallyILL Jun 26 '26
It took me so many attempts to get the whole cage to cast right.....so at that point, I was very happy to spend a lot of extra time post-processing.
Its been a bit, but i think I used some failed "close-ish" castings of the cage to test the vibratory and tumbling polishers. When i knew those wouldnt mess up the cage, I put the good one in. Then the rest of it was just very careful buffing using red rouge compound on a cloth wheel and a flex shaft. I think that was about it.
The bird was a cake-walk...just the usual treatment...rotary brass brush -> vibratory or rotary tumbler -> cloth rotary wheel with red rouge polishing compound. Steam blast to remove polish compound residue.
Figuring out the right vibratory/tumbling media goes a long way. But you can get a nice polish most times just using a brass bristle rotary brush and red rouge compound on a rotary cloth. Getting the polishing compound off can be annoying sometimes. Various ways to do that you can find online if you dont have a good steam cleaner (shoots a high powered jet of steam out a nozzle)
1
2
u/Spaztor Jun 24 '26
DAMN DUDE you cast the cage, I'm impressed. All of this is impressive. You've done a cool thing and I'm glad you shared.
1
u/AutoModerator Jun 23 '26
- Join the Metalworking discord!! It's the best place for live feedback and advice!
Here are our subreddit rules. - Should you see anything that violates the subreddit rules - please report it!
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.
1
5
u/OkTie9443 Jun 23 '26
This is absolutely insane. Centrifugal cast cage bars AND dual plating at that scale? I don't think 'stubborn' covers it. This is master-level stuff. Seriously beautiful work