Carved Wood Sculptures Flatware Cow Bells Fountain Pens
Val gardena, a valley in the italian alps, is renowned for woodcarving. This craft began there in the 17th century as a way to pass the time during the long mountain winters. At first, woodcarvers made practical items, but before long, their masterful hands were creating works of art. From pastoral scenes to religious themes, these magnificently carved wood sculptures seem almost lifelike. After sketching the figure on paper, the carver sculpts a three-dimensional model from a block of plasticine. Using his hands and an array of tools, he meticulously fashions all the intricate details he'll later re-create in wood. For this flute-playing angel, he positions a replica of the instrument to get the angle of her arms and opening of her hands just right. Next, using the plasticine model as a reference, he draws the figure onto a block of wood roughly the size and shape of the sculpture. Using a mallet and chisels, he begins chipping away at the block of wood. This is stone pine wood, a rare species that grows in the higher mountain valleys of the alps. Pine is a soft wood, so it's ideal for carving. When it comes time for the finer work-- carving the details and smoothing out the surface-- he switches to a fine paring chisel. From the finished wood model, the factory casts a bronze copy to use for producing the final sculptures out of maple wood. When the maple planks arrive at the factory, their moisture level, as this hydrometer reading shows, is typically between 70% and 80%. If they carve the wood while it's still wet, the sculpture would eventually crack, so they load the wood into a giant dryer for about a week to bring the moisture down to an ideal 6%. When the wood comes out of the dryer, they trim off the bark with a circular saw then cut off all but the best part in the middle. They trim those middle pieces into uniform blocks just slightly larger than the size of the sculpture. 20 blocks at a time go onto a machine called a pantograph, a sharp carving head over each block. Those 20 carving heads are linked to a blunt master head. A technician slowly moves this master head over every inch of the bronze model. This simultaneously manipulates the 20 carving heads to shape their respective blocks into fairly unrefined copies of the model in half the size. The machine can't reproduce the fine details, so the original carver returns to personally carve each and every sculpture to completion. By the time he's done, what once was an ordinary block of wood is forever transformed. Now the sculpture truly comes alive in the talented hands of an artist. With her palette of oil pants, she dresses the bare wood, alternating between different brushes to create varying textures. Technique is everything here. She must apply enough paint to cover the bare wood and enhance the craftsmanship, yet not apply too much paint. Otherwise, this exquisitely carved sculpture could look like cheap plastic. Once the paint dries, they glue a metal disk with the company name into a hole under the base. Then they package the piece with protective wrapping and a certificate of authenticity that guarantees this is a genuine carved-wood sculpture from val gardena, italy. Throughout the centuries, man fashioned eating utensils out of various metals. The 1840s saw the invention of silver plating over inexpensive base metals. Sterling silver and silver plate remained the norm until the early 1950s, when stainless-steel flatware made its debut. Stainless steel flatware is durable and, unlike silver plate, doesn't dull, tarnish, or wear off. This flatware starts out as thick wire called coil. To make knives, the coil goes into a heading machine that cuts pieces to blade length, then forms them into blank shapes with a head at one end. This bolster, as it's called, will connect the blade to the knife handle. A furnace softens the metal for the final shaping in a forging press. Three dies progressively forge the shape and trim off the excess metal. After grinding the end of the bolster flat, the next machine welds on the tang, which fits inside the knife handle. Now an automated grinding wheel tapers the blade thinner at the front. A second grinding wheel scallops the front edge. This is the knife's serration. The thicker back end gives the blade strength to withstand the pressure you apply when cutting food. For the knife handles, the factory uses stainless steel with a higher nickel content. It has greater corrosion resistance and is easier to form, which is critical, given that handles often feature very intricate designs. Handles, too, start out as coil that goes through a series of dies. Each finished piece is half a handle. A spot-welding machine tacks the two halves together, forming a handle shell. To fuse the halves completely, this machine cuts a piece of copper-based wire and drops it inside the hollow handle. A furnace melts the wire so that it flows into the crevice between the two halves, soldering the seam thoroughly. An etching machine grinds the solder line until it blends in with the surrounding stainless steel. Workers pour liquid cement into the center of a carousel on which they mount 50 handles at a time. As the carousel spins, the centrifugal force shoots the cement outward, filling the handle cavities. Then workers insert a blade into each one. A 10-minute soak in hot water cures the cement. Workers scrub off any excess cement that oozed out. On the spoon line, a press cuts standard steel into paintbrush-shaped pieces. Then heavy rollers stretch those pieces out, thinning the end that'll become the spoon's bowl. A trim press then cuts the spoon's profile. Next, a machine called a coining press punches the pattern into the handle then forms the bowl to its rounded shape. Forks go through the same steps as spoons then through a press that cuts the tines in two stages. A support bar keeps the tines from moving, while a coining press puts a slight bend in them. The next machine slices off that bar and stacks the finished forks. The last stop for all the flatware is the buffing equipment. Cloth wheels polish the surface with liquid buffing compound until the steel shines. The casual patterns are now ready for packaging. The more formal ones get dressed up with full or partial plating in silver or gold. In the swiss countryside, the cowbell is a traditional sight and sound. At roundup, as the cows start walking, their bells clang and wake up the sleeping cows, telling them it's time to move. At pasture, if a cow wanders off from the herd, its bell alerts the farmer. swiss cowbells also play a ceremonial roll. Farmers adorn their prize livestock with them. The larger and more ornate the bell, the greater the farmer's pride in the animal. Finer cowbells are made by artisans, like this one in switzerland. He starts by laying a template on a sheet of steel that's 2 to 3 millimeters thick, depending on the type of bell. With the plasma cutter, he cuts two pieces. Each will form half the bell. While each piece is still flat, he engraves a design using a hammer and burins of various sizes. A burin is handled blade with a beveled tip. Next, he heats a spot then stamps his logo and the bell size, according to a swiss numbering system. Next stop, a gas-fired furnace. The 1,800-degree-fahrenheit heat softens the metal, which he then lays in a forging press. The press closes, shaping the piece into half a cowbell. He repeats this process with a second piece to make the other half. Then he refines the shape and thickness using a variety of hammers. Forging each flat sheet into a half-bell made lines on the sides. He now welds and then grinds those seams flat. He hammers every centimeter of each bell half to refine and purify the sound. It's time to weld the two halves together. He tacks them in place then welds the entire seam. Later, he'll grind the weld line flush with the bell's surface. Next, he welds a steel handle to the top of the bell. This will hold the leather strap from which the cowbell will hang. Beneath the handle, on the inside, he welds on a v-shaped rod to hold the battle, the swinging hammer that strikes the bell's inner walls. On each side, he pierces two holes for rivets where the bell halves cross over each other. With a torch and a forging tool, he shapes each top rivet until it's nice and round. Then he hammers each bottom rivet flat to make them unnoticeable. Here he melts a brass bullet casing riveted area. That white powder is borax, a mineral that helps the soldering process. Adding this little bit of brass solidifies the fold and improves the bell's sound quality. The cowbell's construction is now complete. However, all that forging and welding has left dark spots on the steel. So, the bell now goes for a 15-hour bath in hydrochloric acid. This cleaning makes the bell even-toned and shiny. A thorough washing removes the acid residue. Then it's into a basin of sawdust to dry. Sawdust absorbs water faster than cloths do. The engraved decorations don't show up well on the shiny surface, so the artisan brushes acid on strategic spots to oxidize the steel and create the illusion of relief. It takes tremendous skill to milk a beautiful cowbell out of an ordinary sheet of steel. But there's still the decorative leather strap, which is the job of a saddlemaker. some bells are simple, others elaborately decorated with baked-on enamel colors. Either way, a fine, handcrafted cowbell will last for generations. The fountain pen was invented in 1884. Until then, people wrote with quills or steel pens, which required repeated dipping in a bottle of ink. The fountain pen was revolutionary because it held its own ink in a built-in reservoir. Discriminating writers still consider the fountain pen the ultimate writing instrument. These high-end, italian-made fountain pens have a tubular middle called the barrel, which houses the ink reservoir. There are various types of mechanisms for filling the barrel. This one is called the filler pump. It works just like a syringe. You unscrew the end, which draws a piston upward, creating a vacuum that sucks up the ink. When you write, the ink flows through a speed-regulating feeder to the nib of the pen. Nibs are made of stainless steel or, in luxury pens like these, solid gold. To make the nib, rollers flatten a piece of gold. Then a press cuts out a starting shape, with a stress-relief hole to keep the nib from cracking when it flexes. Another press stamps the caret marking and company name then bends the piece to its final shape. A worker cuts the ink pathway using a diamond cutting wheel thinner than a human hair. To fortify the nib's tip, this machine welds on a tiny glob of iridium, a durable metal in the platinum family. Workers grind the iridium tip to a precise size and shape. This is what dictates the thickness of the pen's line, from fine to broad, and the line's style, such as italic or oblique. Polishing is the final stop on the journey from plain piece of gold to ornate nib. The feeder that transfers ink from the reservoir to the nib is made from a cylindrical piece of ebonite, which they cut to a point. These blades carve grooves down the sides. When you write, these grooves fill with ink, regulating the rate of the ink flow. One end of the feeder goes into a holder. The other end slips behind the nib. This machine pushes the nib into its final position, which technicians verify under a magnifier. Elsewhere in the factory, they produce the pen's external parts. Here, presses and metal drawing machinery shape sterling-silver disks into pen caps. The cap protects the nib, of course, but it also provides decorative flare, often having guilloche, an intricate, diamond-cut engraving. The factory's computer-guided engraving equipment decorates this model with subtle stripes. A rolling engraver then applies the company's name. Every cap has a clip made of beryllium copper, a strong yet flexible metal which they plate in gold. The barrel and other parts for many models are made from plastic resin. An injection-molding machine melts resin pellets into liquid then shoots it into molds. When the resin solidifies, the machine ejects the molded parts ready for polishing. The pieces join to each other with metal connecting rings. The pen assembler carefully measures the placement of the resin piston within the barrel. Once the piston's inserted, the edge of the barrel gets a thin coat of sealant to prevent ink leaks. Then the assembler screws on the endpiece, the same one you unscrew to draw up the piston and fill the pen. The finishing touch is to mount the nib. Finally, every pen goes through a specific set of writing tests to ensure its performance measures up to its stylish good looks.