Forging Leaves


Well, they say everything gets better with practice. If so, then I need to practice leaves until I drop! I've made a few that turned out okay, but I generally avoid making them because I can't consistently make them acceptably so that I'd say proudly "I made that"!



Tools
Leaf Hammer
First tool, a "leafing hammer".
One end is for hammering the basic leaf into forms for a cupped shape
and the other end is sharper allowing it to be used for creating the
veins in a leaf.

The veining chisel is used to cut the
veins into the leaf.



These two tools are to add the center vein down a leaf and provide a way
to add some dimension to the leaves to make them more lifelike.




The veins can also be added using a tool like this veining
hardy to hammer the leaf against adding the pattern.

Found the picture of this device online.
It will do both the veining of the leaf and allow
cupping over the dome under the chisel.

leaf swage
This is my latest purchase, a leaf-making swage.
It's got a station for drawing out the rod, one for putting in the
center spine, one for putting in the leaf veins, and one for
adding the bends in the leaf to make it look more natural.




This is a basic storyboard on how to make a leaf.








Gingko Leaf A Quick Leaf
square stock leaf
Click here to watch the video on making this leaf keychain.

I ran across this leaf keychain while I was perusing the web one day looking for a simple leaf for an upcoming demonstration at our local botanical garden. I saw this one by Roy Adams and liked it's ease of making in part because you aren't drawing out the sides of the leaves much. It uses a hardy or two that not everyone has laying around. Could you easily make them? Yes, but a little ingenuity and you can use other chisels/hardies and come up with an acceptable modification.




mouse
    Gee Mom, look what else I've found!


Wisdom of my father: "It takes more of a man to walk away from a fight than to stay and fight." Hit counter