Two-tone effect, and Heat Colouring on Steel Prints

Discussion in 'Finishing Techniques' started by bengabel, Jun 17, 2016.

  1. bengabel
    bengabel Active Member
    I've been experimenting with getting different colours.

    first is the print as delivered in Gold Steel:
    1.jpg


    then polished to give a two-tone Steel - Gold effect:
    tracheon2.jpg


    Then heated with a blowtorch to give yellows and blueing:
    blued_yellowed.jpg


    And polished again to give a Steel - Blue effect:
    blued_silver2.jpg

    Hope this provides some inspiration! Heat gently and evenly, there's not much temperature difference from yellow -> blue -> purple :)

    Ben
     
    Last edited: Jun 17, 2016
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  2. Andrewsimonthomas
    Andrewsimonthomas Well-Known Member
    These are beautiful, looks to be a successful experiment. You took some lovely pictures as well!
     
  3. katkinkead
    katkinkead Well-Known Member
    Woah!!!!! What!? I had no idea you could do this with our steel. Those blues look like something from the cosmos.

    Would love to see some photos of this process in action. I can't even fathom how you made this possible. So cool!
     
  4. Daphne_Lameris
    Daphne_Lameris Well-Known Member
    Looks really pretty!
     
  5. bengabel
    bengabel Active Member
    Glad you like it. Here's a more subtle example, with a gentle blueing applied to my Nautilus model. This is Polished Gold Steel , in this case I have tried to keep the blueing very gentle so you can still see the gold through it. It kind of shines different colours depending on the quality of the light you are looking at it in.

    IMG_20160712_173514.jpg
     
  6. bengabel
    bengabel Active Member
    Oh, just to be clear, I've not enhanced the colour or levels in these photos, they're raw pics just as taken, outdoors, on my phone (2015 motoE 4G) with colour balance set to automatic.
     
  7. bengabel
    bengabel Active Member
    And an action shot: IMG_20160702_172916#1.jpg
     
  8. bengabel
    bengabel Active Member
    But it is definitely the Tracheon model that is the prettiest :)

    IMG_20160627_180427.jpg
     
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  9. bengabel
    bengabel Active Member
    It is very photogenic. Here it is surrounded by some rather unusual fungus, which I particularly liked as a background, because it appears to be a naturally occurring gyroid-like minimal surface. tracheon fungus2.jpg
     

    Attached Files:

    Last edited: Jul 12, 2016
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  10. bengabel
    bengabel Active Member
    The two-tone silver/gold effect you get from just polishing the surface of the Gold Steel finish is really quite dramatic even without heat colouring. Here it is demonstarated on the Xylem sculpture: twotonex.jpg
     
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  11. bengabel
    bengabel Active Member
    Here is the heat treatment on a bronze-steel print. It still works but is not as dramatic. I think this is because of the lower stainless-steel content.

    First, the original print in bronze steel - Trachoid II sculpture. The inside is really intricate - a mobius looped torus thing with flanges that run in and out different ports. But this is hard to see and a lot of the detail is lost in the shadows, this is the best photo I can get and it really took ages to get the light just right, yet its still not that clear what is going on.
    Trachoid_bronzesteel.jpg

    Then, it was heated to the straw-gold point, to get this effect:
    trachoid_bronze_heatedyellow1.jpg

    This adds a really nice variation in colour that brings out the inside form better. Another photo:

    trachoid_bronze_heatedyellow2.jpg

    And now, when you look at it as a whole, the interior detail is clearer:
    trcahoid_bronze_heatedyellow4.jpg
     
  12. bengabel
    bengabel Active Member
    Oh, and, hey everyone, how about some feedback? Hundreds of views, but no comments - so I don't know if its helpful to keep posting the results of these experiments. Has anyone else tried this, or anything similar? What results do you get? Am I reinventing the wheel here? I'd be really interested to know what other people have tried, or even just to know what you think of the idea.
     
  13. bengabel
    bengabel Active Member
    One more example, this is gold steel again, with a yellow - blue effect that is I think due to thinner parts heating faster and hotter:
     
  14. bengabel
    bengabel Active Member
  15. okaricraft
    okaricraft Active Member
    Very interesting, and pretty. How big are these? Are they designed to be centerpieces or do they have a non-decorative purpose? Does the heat treatment color change with different types of flames (both temperature wise and gas content wise)?
     
  16. NoahLI
    NoahLI Well-Known Member
    so the best metal for this finishing process is ones with highest steel content? The blueing from the first post is quite dramatic, did the gold plating help or hinder that? did you remove the protective spray initially or just burned it off? I'm working on a Kingfisher piece that should look really nice with this treatment to get some blues/orange/silvers
     
  17. mkroeker
    mkroeker Well-Known Member
    I suspect it could be the gold plating rather than the steel content that is the important factor - as these are almost certainly "structural colors" caused by light diffraction and interference in ultrathin surface layers rather than actual blue, yellow or purple colored compounds being formed.
     
  18. bengabel
    bengabel Active Member
    Yes, totally agree these are due to thin layers of oxide acting as a frequency-specific diffraction grating.
    But, I don't think the gold is involved, other than to add an extra complicating foreground colour. I think that it is just the stainless-steel component that is forming the oxide layer.
     
  19. bengabel
    bengabel Active Member
    Yes, I think the higher the stainless-steel content the more dramatic the effect. I need to do more experiments, ideally treating several versions of the same model in different steels, at the same time, and comparing. But its kind of expensive research...

    I haven't figured out exactly what is going on with the gold - it shouldn't react with anything. But it may be that the plating process has some chemical pre-treatment that makes the steel react differently.

    The protective spray or whatever they put on seems to just vaporise / burn off. I think it might be wax-based? I have experimented using plumbers flux to clean/etch the surface better before starting, especially with the Bronze Steel, but I'm not sure it had much effect.
     
  20. bengabel
    bengabel Active Member
    Ah, these are 'pocket sculptures' - monumental artwork you can carry in your pocket. They're all 3.8 to 4.2 cm (about 1 and 3/4 inch) in diameter, and they're designed to be really pleasingly tactile to hold and touch, as well as to look at. Of course if you're really rich they could come much larger :)
    I suspect the type of flame will affect the speed of colour development; its hard to stop at the right colour, and a reducing (or at least less oxidising ) environment might slow it down. That was the rationale to heating on a plank of charred wood. In truth I have no idea if that's actually having any effect though!