'Offering Bowl' is forged from part of the 'Resurection' Bloom made at in 2005.
I envisioned creating a bowl like form that was sold in the centre and preserved the ragged edges of the natural bloom along the margins. Fragments of the bloom were welded into athin plate, roughly 8 inches long by about 4 wide and roughly 1/8 thick. There was some splintering and cracking in the centre of the plate, specifically retained to show the origins of the material. The plate was forged with ball peens into a deep dishing form. This created the final partial sphere shape.

More Details available on 'Hammered Out Bits'

The parent bloom was created at the 2005 Smeltfest event. The metal itself was made from ore smelted using a direct reduction furnace based on those from the Viking Age. (In this case the same Econo-Norse type being demonstrated by DARC on Thursday at CanIRON 8.)

The original bloom mass was quartered by hot cutting. This section was flattened under the air hammer, working at welding temperature. Only one compaction series was undertaken, intentionally to allow cracks and fissures to develop along the margins of the plate. The roughly rectangular plate was then dished hot to create the bowl's shape. The inner surface was roughly polished with a flap sanding disk. The outer surface was given a fast wire brush to remove any loose scale. To finish, the piece was sealed with a spray matte varathane.

The purpose of the grant is to cover three months deicated time to allow development of a practical understanding of how to covert raw blooms into working bars, and if time permits, into finished objects. Part of the process will be to document the ongoing project, and publish the results via a dedicated blog, this web site, through demonstrations, formal papers or jounal articles.