Wolfgang Abratis wrote: <snip> > call me a perfectionist if you like, but I have been always of the > opinion that a material should reflect the dignity of the finished piece > in its entirety. Having built several astrolabes and other instruments > myself, I simply cannot conceive of using such a petty material as > aluminum for that purpose, tempting as it may be for its ease of > machineability. I even excluded copper from the list of my working > materials for although being used by historical instrument makers it is > too soft to stand the hardest of all trials, time. > > However, I agree that no tool should be excluded from use, PROVIDED its > effect (engraving, cutting, etc.) is coherent with the desired period of > time. But there is a limit to that: Even I would not go through the > dangers of hot gliding my works because of the all to real possibility > of mercury poisoning. <snip>
I must raise a point of protest here and throw in my two-penn'orth (about 1.63 cents or 3 pfennigs!). Surely the aim of producing a sundial is to use appropriate materials and methods for the design you are building it to. The material to use should be a design decision and part of that process, not an assumption that for example all sundials are made of brass. The argument so far seems to be focussed around building replica historical brass instruments and I would certainly argue that in this particular case, modern machining methods and materials other than brass would be inappropriate. (Calculation and layout methods ARE invisible in the resulting dial and excluded from my argument.) However there are more than enough modern designs and situations where other materials are more appropriate. We are blessed in Cambridge (UK) with a variety of historic and modern sundials and they range from painted panels through brass and modern bronze pieces to a new one I have just found cut into the concrete cladding of a building. Sorry for the rambling argument, but my argument is "horses for courses" - use what's appropriate, both material and method. A side argument is that if you are trying to sell them then you need to take into account the VERY limited tastes of the mass market. I can't find anything but cast brass in the shops here. David [EMAIL PROTECTED] - all opinions mine, not my employers
