Brittle

That’s right, I did a double wedge fold OVERTOP of another double wedge fold. ©2014 WTEK

You all know that I’m crazy enough to fold nickel. Today was no exception. I was folding, texturing, and unfolding a sheet of 24g nickel to use in an upcoming wall piece. I went about it the way I used for the eel shapes in Cascade and Maelstrom. So it was pretty intense.

This time it was particularly taxing opening the nickel up after the first fold. Sometimes I wonder what my neighbors think about me. There was intense pounding by my mallet that was shaking the workbench in the studio. There were also a bunch of grunty noises coming from me peppered with some choice words as I tried to wrench the folds apart.

All unfurled ©2014 WTEK

Then I finally managed to fold it across the opposite way and then unfold it. (Bear in mind there is a ton of annealing going on in between.) After finally getting it as flat as it’s going to get, I noticed that there was a tiny part that was folded that had a hole bust through. There is also another fold that shows signs of brittleness as well. This isn’t the end of the world since I’ll be cutting parts out of this sheet. I’ll just have to cut around these sections.

This is why I tell you to ANNEAL, ANNEAL, ANNEAL all the time in my classes. Plus nickel’s just brittle sometimes.

The Tear in the Fabric of Reality, ur, I mean, the hole in the folded nickel. ©2014 WTEK