jeff wrote:If the joint had still been flush, I suspect that I would have had little difficulty buffing out the stem and maintaining the integrity of the blast. In past restorations this has not proven a problem. A touch or two of the buffing wheel to a blasted shank hasn't been problematic in the past. How would you do it?
The whole situation is becoming clearer as we talk. You obviously have the chops to handle stem/shank junctions in whatever way necessary, and make your having "been there" undetectable.
At first, I only saw the pics and the phrase, "avoid dealing with fitting stem to shank accurately," and thought you meant in a truly, not-touch-the-wood sort of way. Because you had to.
As for how I would do it, nothing different than you did. Just get 'em to match with the least amount of impact (material removal) possible, and retouch whatever that impact turned out to be.
Oh, and I saw your post of the bowl top restoration. I've done similar things without using a pan, but a wet cloth and a soldering iron. That enables me to "spot" steam without raising the whole top.
That's the standard way, of course. I just got to playing with the idea of how much damage could be undone without shortening the bowl, and raising all of the rim and cutting it back yielded a better result than spotting because of the double action. Everything up then cut back to zero lets you take off material, while spotting alone doesn't. And some of the dents are "in" that sawdust (so to speak).
Sadly this particular piece was so abused (as was another from the same collection) that the ovular char ring on the bowl may require me to top and reblast the rim if I want to restore it. I'm still up in the air about it seeing as it is only for my personal use. It might be a fun little task if I feel up to it.
Blasting, too. You're very much the Real Deal, then.
I think it is time for me to click on that "see all posts by" button.
I'm new here, and somehow you got under my radar.
