08-13-2005, 11:39 AM
I was just looking through a modern sheet metal fabrication book, and with the use of lead shot pillows and both flat and curved hammers, they can achieve remarkable curves and bowls without use of a powered hammer in steel. I seem to remember from websites that the idea was that Romans started with ingots of iron or brass, or disks thicker in the center than the edges, and hammered them out over a stone (or other hard) form, thinning the metal as they went.
Is that the way it was done, or did the Romans hammer the sheet brass/iron out first, then use curved hammers and sand bags to form the bowls? If they used the big stone head shaped forms, have any been found? Those would be big, heavy and likely to stay around after the workshop went idle.
In this book, the metal worker's hammer marks are all eliminated by carefully working around the metal, but that is time consuming.
Is that the way it was done, or did the Romans hammer the sheet brass/iron out first, then use curved hammers and sand bags to form the bowls? If they used the big stone head shaped forms, have any been found? Those would be big, heavy and likely to stay around after the workshop went idle.
In this book, the metal worker's hammer marks are all eliminated by carefully working around the metal, but that is time consuming.
Richard Campbell
Legio XX - Alexandria, Virginia
RAT member #6?
Legio XX - Alexandria, Virginia
RAT member #6?
