Master Class: Creating a Unique Brass Grille for Various Steampunk Projects, With a Hexagonal Structure.

Creating a Unique Brass Grille for Various Steampunk Projects, With a Hexagonal Structure.

1. 1.5 mm brass sheet for making the punch and die.

2. 0.1-0.5 mm brass sheet for making the grid.

3. Solder paste or tin with rosin.

4. Metal shears or a Dremel with a mini disc saw.

5. Powerful bench vise or press.

6. Gas cylinder with burner. I use a large cylinder purchased from a store - they can be bought at any hardware store.

7. Protective gloves, goggles, and preferably an apron.

8. Ruler, marker, thin iron wire (optional).

I purchased these items in stores in Israel, but you can definitely find everything on Amazon, eBay, and AliExpress.

!!!!! Dear friends. The first thing I ask you to read and remember is to take safety seriously. All my works and master classes involve working with metal, albeit colored metal. And with various tools, some of which can be harmful to your health if safety precautions are not followed. Please wear protective gloves, goggles, and a protective apron. And try NOT TO GET DISTRACTED while working by doing other things, such as browsing social media or watching cat videos (which I love and adore. I have several cats in my house!)).

... And please forgive me in advance for any mistakes in English, I'm trying very hard )).

The second point of the master class - is we begin to create a punch and die for our beautiful and original grille.

The first photo in the second point shows finished brass strips 7 millimeters wide and 1.5 millimeters thick. To simplify routine marking, I made marks in advance on a metal ruler, which I use to quickly mark the brass strip into pieces that need to be cut. Next, we cut (I use a Dremel, which is very convenient) the brass strip into the marked pieces. The second and third photos in point two show that you need to lay the cut pieces on the brass strip, after coating the joints with solder paste. The dimensions and distances depend on your ideas and plans. The dimensions and distances depend on your ideas and plans.

Next, cut the corners of the soldered brass pieces at the desired angle (in my case, 45 degrees). The shape of the future grille depends on the angle of the cut on the brass piece. Then mark our die on the finished punch and repeat step two to create the die. In our case, the punch and die are absolutely identical.

Let's start creating our grid.

Solder the punch with careful movements along the strip so that the paste evenly bonds the parts. Do this carefully, as the soldering temperature exceeds 1300 degrees Celsius.

That's it, the punch and die are done.

Next, you can make a nice grid using these tools.

So, we're almost done. Using powerful bench vices (or a press, which is much more convenient), compress the brass strip between the punch and the die until it is completely compressed! That's it, the "snake" is ready—it's part of the future grille.

This is the final step. Gather our “snakes” into a grid, and coat the brass contact points with solder paste. Next, carefully tie the grid together with nichrome wire and solder it with a gas cylinder (be careful, the soldering temperature is over 1300 degrees Celsius). That's it, now we wait for our grid to cool down!

6 That's it, our grid is ready. Where and how to use this decorative element is up to you. At the beginning of the article, I published two works where this grid was used (the Stalker docking station and a phone case, also Stalker).

I sincerely hope you find this master class useful. Or maybe you just liked it )). Thank you for watching.