Metal Techniques for Craftsmen

Title: Metal Techniques for Craftsmen: A Basic Manual on the Methods of Forming and Decorating Metals
Author: Oppi Untracht
Publisher: Doubleday & Co.,Inc., New York, 1975
ISBN: 0-385—03027-4
509 pages; charts & tables; sources of supply (many probably out of date); glossary; index.

This book is out of print and will probably be hard to find and expensive when you do find it. However, you will find it well worth the time, effort and money. In these 500 pages the author covers in great detail with extensive use of photographs and drawings, virtually all aspects of metal work with heavy emphasis on decorative techniques.

He covers: Metals: Basic Information; Metal Decorative Techniques; Methods of Metal Fabrication; Metal Finishing; Hand Tools and Their Uses.

When it comes to artistic metal work, you name it and it is covered in this book: all types of soldering; jewelry, repousse, engraving, casting, etc. Most of the examples of work are from India (the author was a Fulbright Scholar to India and also did research in Nepal). In addition to the extensive collection of pictures of metal work, there are a lot of pictures of tooling. The depiction of tools is quiet extensive, for example when he show hand drills, there are drawings of 5 different hand drills; in the section on cold chisels, 12 different cold chisel points are shown.

If there is one draw back to this book, it would be that it is from the late sixties and early seventies. I would have to guess that a lot of the tool companies listed have gone out of business and a some of the tooling and materials shown may be difficult to locate today. Others might say that the heavy use of Indian metal work is a liability to the book. However, most of us have seen many examples of American and European metal work; here is an opportunity to expand ones “metal vocabulary” by seeing how metal is worked in the Asian tradition.

If you want to add decorative touches to your work, this book will provide detailed information on many techniques that you might try. If you want a copy of this book, you will need to search in used book stores or make use of a book search service.

Book review by Albin Drzewianowski

-- AlbinDrzewianowski - 13 Feb 2008